TRUTH OR TALE?

Some years ago, I had gone to visit a mentor in the company of a couple of my girl friends. I especially looked forward to those visits as a young student at the time living miles away from home. They afforded me the closest experience to home - I could expect some good food, motherly warmth, wholesome conversations and godly advice.

As we conversed, the topic naturally drifted towards marriage - I mean we were young girls, almost rounding up school and getting to the stage where parents start asking funny questions. In particular, the conversation had drifted to details around describing what kind of man we hoped to get married to and our general expectations around marriage.

"Ma, I'm afraid of getting married - in fact, I don't really have any great expectations or ideas about it"

I blurted out something along those lines when it eventually got to my turn to speak. And I meant it, I wasn't bluffing. Let me take you back a bit on how I got there.

I never got the opportunity to learn from my parents' marriage - my biological dad had passed away exactly a week to my 5th birthday. Not realizing the gravity of what had happened then as a child, all I remembered focusing on was whether my 5th birthday which we had been planning for weeks would still hold. By the time I was mature enough to start understanding the world around me, I was shocked to see married men who lived in my neighborhood making passes at other women, some of them who were often too young. By the time I had access to a mobile phone with internet, the rest they say is history. I had first class access into the messiest marriage scandals, often from people I knew nothing about.

The end result was that I had formed a warped and distorted idea of marriage fueled by a myriad of tales around me. Worse still, I had internalized those ideas to the point that I was afraid of an institution I wasn't close to nearing at the time . The danger in that was that those tales and experience, no matter how real they were, were not the truth about marriage. In fact, I eventually realized I knew little to nothing about the institution that had been sold so wrongly to me.

"Betty" my mentor blurted out, "you cannot expect to have a good home when all you keep surrounding yourself with is information about bad marriages. You have to intentionally look for the good marriages around you and determine to have a good one".

At that moment, it was like scales fell off my eyes and I suddenly realized that I actually had so many good marriages around me. In fact, my lament at the moment felt like a slap on the face of my mentor who had a home that was so exemplary and instructive. The power of that single wise counsel stayed with me that whole day (Proverbs 11:4)

You see, one thing about bad events is that they tend to be remembered easily compared to good ones. Research has suggested that because bad memories are emotionally charged and often rehearsed, they form stronger but not necessarily accurate synapses (connections between brain cells). Little wonder the word of God instructs us to actively guard our hearts with all vigilance - like someone working against a natural order of things.

It was clear as I left that place that very day that the choice was mine to make. I could either keep believing the tales I had seen and heard, or I could seek to know the truth found in God's word that was able to make me free. I made my choice and I am glad I did. Every situation in life will come with tales, often interspersed with drops of truth; one thing is clear, that same choice is before us everyday to either believe the tales or live by the Truth - which would you choose?

Let's keep the conversation going in the comments. What are your thoughts on this topic? Have you been in any situation were the tales you heard about something or someone negatively colored your perception? How did you handle it?