Church Lying

 

Have you ever heard of "Church Lying"?  I may have made this up, but to me, Church Lying is distinctly different than "Public Lying".  Church Lying is where we have discovered that Michelle WILL lie to you in church.

See, sometimes, when I get embarrassed, my panic kicks in real deep and real hard and all of a sudden, my Christian Card disappears. AND I forget all that is holy. AND I forget that I have a moral code to live by.

It’s like my brain glitches and switches to survival mode. Looking out for numero uno. Saving myself now so I can help can save others later.

One of my favorite examples is this- One time, I had the honor of holding a friend’s infant while they were on ministering during service.  Now, we knew this family very well and I’ve held this kid before, multiple times.  I was a trusted guardian.

This also happened to be the same service that my in-laws were visiting for – it was their first trip to Alaska – and it was turning out to be a lovely worship service. Our whole row was packed with myself, husband, in-laws, a few more adults and a dear friend’s husband on the end.

Midway through the “slow worship” portion (you know, where everything gets deep and heavy, the Holy Ghost was flowing – Spirit moving – super spiritual atmosphere), my body decided that it was time to expel some toxic….gas.  No worries – I grew up with the ideology that certain bodily functions weren’t “natural” (such as farting) – so I had trained myself on the art of allowing these spurts of gas to be released in a certain way which slows down the pace and inhibits all (or most of) noise.  The only thing that I could never control was the scent. And unfortunately, this one was bad.  Like, I thought it was bad, but it was so bad that everyone in the row took notice – I’m talking from my spouse (who’s supposed to love, honor, protect and claim all farts as his) to his parents, all the way down to my friend’s husband on the other end of the aisle who’s eyes started to roll into the back of his head.  It was noticeable, and people wanted to know who the culprit was. How darest they ruin such a wonderful service?

As eyes started to turn towards me, like any good, well-trained Christian lass would do, furiously shook my head and I pointed to the diaper of the sweet infant I was holding. That’s right – I had blamed this epic monstrosity on a defenseless baby. I used someone else’s innocent child for the sake of my own dignity.

Fortunately for me, this child was actually known for his own epic stanks. Unfortunately for me, by the time I had tracked down his mom to explain the (hilarious in hindsight) story to her, my friend’s husband had already told her about her child’s horrendous gas. Oops.

Did I learn my lesson? Yes. Well, yes and no – Yes, I will claim my own farts (most of the time), but sometimes I still lie in church.