The truth will set us free.
I know that.  I believe it. This weekend, I lived it, and I still do today.


The back story:  Grandma (little sweet 90 year young Grandma) got a lawsuit delivered in early January. I read and re-read it, and realized that this has to do with a well that Daddy was part of planning in 1973. The suit is really against a large oil company, but because my father had a tiny percentage-of-a-percentage of royalties on the well, which helps to support my mother still, mother was named in the suit. There were pages and pages of questions mother has to answer and send back before the end of the month, and I couldn't make any sense of them!


The wording of the suit was threatening, and I knew mother would know nothing about it, and I didn't want to upset her, so I started asking a few people, but mostly I did nothing.  A phone call to an oil company went unreturned, another phone call to the big one being sued led to a couple re-routings, and the last one went unreturned.  I looked at the calendar going by, and was just frozen with fear.  Trusting God, but not knowing what to do next.


So our dear dear son-in-law (in the last semester of law school) insisted on making the drive to San Antonio to look at the bulk of papers they had delivered, in spite of my protests that it would be too hard on Beckie and the baby to drive over.


Josh read it, told me what to get ready for any lawyer I might talk to.  God had prepared me, because last week I was driven to straighten up mother's papers that we had moved into my dining room when she moved to assisted living. Josh even did some online research and found a legal group very near to our neighborhood.  He let me know the serious nature of the suit, but also encouraged me and urged me to call them and leave a message over the weekend.  So I am sitting here waiting for a return call this morning.  These people may help, or maybe they will direct me to another attorney who knows more about our issue.


So the truth isn't all good, but it isn't all bad, and I don't need to curl up in a ball of fear!  


I thanked Josh for coming and told him that FEAR had had me paralyzed, but knowing the logical truth of the situation had freed me to be fearless and trusting that God and smart lawyers can clear up this situation.


And there is the lesson...FEAR is horrible. It bound me up with irons and shackles and I couldn't make myself move. But TRUTH is like a key to unlock all that stuff and I can move again.


God is teaching me something here. Like the fear that sometimes keeps us away from confession...fear of speaking aloud the things about our wrong choices, things that we would rather not hear.  Yet, when I go to confession, I always come out of that door ready to run and jump and celebrate, and move forward!

Thank You, God for another good lesson.  I have to LIVE them to LEARN them.