Lied to....a classic "who stole the cookie" tale.....

We made cookies for her class party this weekend...60 of them! On sticks. Fun times and quite a treat! We ate two a piece, too. It turned out to be a saddening experience, though a worthwhile one, too........

I don't think there is a worse feeling than the feeling you get when you've been lied to....and not just once, but MANY times.
"Did you have fun at your party?" I said.
"Oh, yeah! It was fun!" she said.
"Did you give out all your cookies?"
"Yeah."
"Are they all gone?"
"Yeah, we ate them all."
"Good! So we made enough, then!(long pause) ...Did you eat all your lunch?"
"Yeah."
"Carrots, too?"
"Yup."
"Good for you! I'm impressed!"

(Next morning, cleaning the bathroom with her I find cookie crumbs on floor in the corner)
"Uhmmmm, did you forget to tell me you had cookies left over from yesterday?"
"No. There weren't any left."
"oh? I see cookie crumbs all over the floor in here. Are you sure you didn't have ANY left over?"
"Well, maybe one. But only one."
"oh. Why did you lie about that last night?"
"I didn't."
"No? Oh..... I must've misunderstood you....are there anymore cookies left?"
"No." (guilty look and quick turn of the head)
"Okay, where are the cookies?" I say with some disappointment.
"There aren't anymore."
"So if I call your teacher at school and ask her if there were left over cookies from yesterday, she'd say no?"
"There were only a few left...."
"Only a few? How many? Where are they?"
"In there..."(pointing to her backpack).

Inside was a brown bag stuffed full of about 20 cookies.....and her uneaten lunch I'd packed the morning before complete with carrots....it reeked and smelled of rotting ham. I was saddened.

We talked about how awful lying can be and hurtful it is to be lied to. We talked about the fact that if she had just told the truth about them at the very beginning, she could have spared being punished and if she had asked to take the cookies home to her family, I would've said 'yes'. But the cookies did not belong to her. They were a gift to her class. They would also cause her to get very sick if she had eaten all of them. She agreed that I needed to take away the cookies and throw away the lunch I'd made for her. Then we addressed the fact that when she tells me something that isn't true, the Holy Spirit often tells me....I know that she's telling a lie because there is something in my "gut" that says "there's something wrong here". We talked about the feelings we get when we lie and feel we have to keep something hidden. It feels bad. But when we tell the truth, it feels good and people feel comfortable playing and spending time with us. She understood.

The consequence? I now have to check her bag every time she comes to our house and when she leaves. No Nintendo. We were going to go swimming and to a strawberry patch, but she couldn't go. Lying is a big deal. She also had to write a note to her mom stating what happened and what the consequences were. We prayed and asked Jesus to forgive us because He knew about the lies long before I did and He was sad, too.

Throughout the day, I caught her in a few more lies. Little ones that don't seem to matter much, but they were still very disappointing. Each time we talked about the effect those lies had on my ability to trust her and enjoy her company. It hurts to be lied to.

I battled in my head whether I'd been too hard on her or whether I should have checked her bag the night before when I had a feeling that she wasn't telling the truth....then I thought about the MANY times I did the same thing when I was her age. I got in trouble a lot. When did I really get it that lying was extremely hurtful and that I never really got away with it anyway? There were many times when I'd say to our kids that we'd go do something or I would help them do something and I got distracted.....forgot. They interpreted that as me lying to them. Maybe I never really got it afterall. Then I was reading the passage below. I felt convicted.

Jeremiah 9:4-6
"Beware of your friends; do not trust your brothers. For every brother is a deceiver, and every friend a slanderer. Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sinning. You live in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me," declares the LORD."

How many times have I deceived...especially those close to me. It may not be with hurtful lies, but perhaps in not following through with something I told them I would....or perhaps not returning something promptly......or in the case with the kids, forgetting or "acting as though" I forgot in order to get out of doing something I didn't want to do. Do you ever do that? Maybe make up a story that you're busy when someone you don't particularly care for wants to have coffee with you? What strikes me is that the verse above says that "they have TAUGHT their tongues to lie". They have been conditioned. Practiced. That's a scary thought. Maybe I have conditioned myself to "forget" things that I need to follow through on..... I don't want to weary myself with sinning and I certainly do not want the kids we have here conditioning, teaching themselves to lie. Maybe I wasn't too hard on her afterall? Mmmm. Any thoughts?