She broke.

I’m not sure when it happened, but it was some time ago, when the man she adored couldn’t bear the weight of clean living.

Again.

She fought hard, loved well, probably enabled, don’t we all, and then she broke.

She left.

She had to.

The church talked.

That hurt.

They got it all wrong.

They blamed her.

They didn’t know a thing.

They talked some more.

That hurt some more.

So tired she was, so broke, so wounded, so rejected, so sad, she got tired of the lies.

She’d lived lies, seen lies, eaten lies, drank lies, loved a liar.

She decided to tell the truth.

For. A. Change.

And then, church, here is one more tragedy in an already tragic story.

She chose the “biggest gossip in the church” and told the rest of the story. So the truth could trump the lies.

It spread like wildfire.

(Don’t pick up those stones.)

She was tired. She was broken. She was lied to, lied for, lied about, and didn’t want to lie down one more day.

When she shared her story, I didn’t have to ask who she borrowed for a microphone. I knew. But I mouthed the name out of vicious curiosity, and she nodded through her tears.

Didn’t take much to guess her pick for the biggest gossip in the church.

Here’s the million-dollar-question.

Was it you?

Might it be me next time?

ISA 6:5  “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”