Person to Person

Of all the things we had to encounter in living with Lydia, our five year old foster child, the most difficult was her penchant for lying. Lydia told me that her mother had instructed her never to tell an adult the truth of what she was doing or where she was going, just to be “safe.” Lydia thought that lying was a life skill that she needed to practice. I tried many arguments with her, but she was adamant. I had introduced the term “straight arrow,” and told her that it meant “telling the truth in everything. She thought it was an interesting image, but it didn’t apply to her.

One day when we were discussing her need to tell the truth, I said to her, “God wants you to be “straight arrow!” “How do you know that?” She asked. For a moment I was at a loss, and then I said, “I know it’s true because He wants me to be a straight arrow.” I was surprised that Lydia had no return but “Oh.” I looked at her face and saw that my answer somehow made sense to her, and I might have learned more in that moment than she did; but it stayed with her that what I said was true.

It didn’t prevent Lydia from lying , but I could at least say, ‘ Is that ‘straight arrow?’” when I suspected her. She freely admitted , “no” when she had lied. It was a small break-through, but it improved our relationship and my trust.

St. Paul wrote about a “mystery” that had been hidden for centuries until the coming of Christ: To God’s people God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27) Paul acknowledged the mystery of the interaction between human souls and the Spirit of Christ: The son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth. . . . In him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-16)

It held together for Lydia that I was telling her to do something that I had been told to do. It held together that it must be true, and that she was entirely willing to accept being a “straight arrow,” if I was one. Fostering children, whose perceptions had been shaped far from my own, in circumstances I could hardly imagine, would not have been possible for me without the presence of Jesus’ Holy Spirit in our person to person interactions.

Love in Him,

Prue