One of the things my mom loved to do was visit the “shut-ins” from our church. That’s what the people called those who lived in nursing homes or other places where they were confined for various physical, emotional, or mental impairment reasons. While the term may not have been the most loving, mom’s heart was in the right place. She would very often take me with her on those visits. I assumed she was trying to teach me how to be loving to them. The problem was they scared me. 

I was quite young and impressionable. I didn’t like the strong smell of urine which was pervasive in their lodgings. They oftentimes would holler at me to get me to come closer to them. There were some who had dramatic physical impairments resulting in spastic motions and speech. Sometimes they would reach out to grab me as mom and I walked by, with me holding tightly to her hand. 

When we would leave the nursing homes mom would always express how blessed and thankful she felt after visiting them. She felt love for them. I would always listen and not say anything because I didn’t want to come across as unloving and be a disappointment to her. But one day when she asked me how I felt, I gathered the courage to tell her that I didn’t like going, didn’t like the urine smell, and the people scared me. Her immediate response was: “Bobby, you shouldn’t feel that way,” and then proceeded to tell me how much Jesus loved them. This same scenario repeated itself many times. After each visit she would ask if I felt any different. It didn’t take long for me to start lying and tell her that I did. I wanted to please her and Jesus. 

Subtly and over time a message planted itself in my mind. The message became stronger and I began to believe that my feeling of fear instead of love meant there was something wrong with me. I felt guilty. These negative feelings took root then flourished and I accepted them as being true: I was not loving; I was not compassionate and I disappointed mom; Jesus did not like me; I was not a good person; and I sinned. 

Seem too drastic? Not if you knew the long-term impact these toxic messages had on my life. The seemingly innocuous words received as truth set in motion complicated tangents within me. The truth is they were lies. Psychologists Kristen Zolten M.A. and Nicholas Long Ph.D. have shown from their studies that children begin to form ideas about themselves based on how their parents communicate with them (Parental Communication 1997, 2006; Department of Pediatrics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences). Mom didn’t intend to be cruel to me. She didn’t intentionally lie. She really was trying to teach me how to be a loving person to others. But she did it in the wrong way and, unfortunately, she didn’t have a real pulse on my impressionable mind and sensitive personality. 

There is another way that lies have powerful, long-lasting, toxic impacts on our lives. The belief that one has caused pain or harm to another person and bears responsibility for it, is an example. There is a scene in the film series The Chosen by Dallas Jenkins where Jesus and his disciples are walking through a field in Samaria, when suddenly they see a man in the distance, slowly hobbling towards them. When they meet and after some strained conversation, Jesus announces that he and his disciples are going to eat their evening meal with him and his family. The man immediately begins to explain to Jesus that it is impossible because he and his family have no food for themselves and especially none to share with others. They are totally destitute and have been for years, with no hope of anything better in the future. But Jesus is not to be put off. He has brought the food with him.

After they finished their meal, Jesus casually points to the man’s broken leg and softly asks, “What’s the story?” “I fell off a horse,” he replied. Jesus says, “Tell me your story.” With tears in his eyes the man hauntingly looks around at the disciples who are watching him, and he ponders warily. Then he looks into the eyes of Jesus and begins to tell his story. 

There was a famine in the land and he couldn’t feed his family. They were starving. He had looked at his wife and daughter and saw the hunger and fear in their eyes. He could see the ribs of his daughter through her skin. His wife’s eyes had turned grey. They had run out of food and money. In desperation he left and went to the road that ran from Jericho to Jerusalem where he hid and waited. Eventually a Jew who was traveling alone came along. He jumped him and took all of his money and all of his clothes. But the Jew fought back. In the struggle the Jew was knocked down and hit his head on a rock. The man thought he was probably dead. He quickly mounted the Jew’s horse to take it to be sold at a Roman outpost. But he wasn’t on the horse more than ten minutes when she reared up and through him off. His leg was broken and he and his family ended up worse than they were before. 

“Now you know the kind of man I am,” he told Jesus. “Every day I think about that Jew lying naked on the road possibly dead. I could be a murderer.” Jesus very softly says as he looks at him through tear-filled eyes, “He didn’t die. Someone came along and helped him.” As the man weeps and looks at Jesus in astonishment he asks, “How do you know?” Jesus slowly nodding his head says, “I know. I promise you . . he did not die.” The scene ends in silence. The man stares down at the floor with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Our beliefs about ourselves are closely tied to our sense of purpose, meaning, and connection to something greater than ourselves. Believing lies about ourselves can have significant negative impact on our mental, emotional, physical and even spiritual well-being: 

• Self-esteem: Feeling inadequate, inferior, having low self-worth, lacking confidence and fear of trying new things;
• Anxiety and depression: Believing we are not good enough, worrying about failing and being judged by others, feeling hopeless and powerless to change our situation;
• Self-sabotage: Avoiding challenging opportunities, believing we will fail, engaging in unhealthy habits or relationships, believing we do not deserve better;
• Physical health: Chronic stress leading to headaches, stomachaches, muscle tension, heart disease and other chronic health conditions;
• Loss of meaning and purpose: Believing we have nothing to offer the world, unworthy of love, spiritually empty; 
• Loss of connection with others: Believing we are not good enough and fundamentally flawed, struggling to form close relationships or trusting others;
• Loss of inner peace and contentment: Constantly battling negative self-beliefs, difficulty finding a sense of inner calmness and stillness, being tension filled. 
• Loss of connection with God: Feeling unworthy of love or forgiveness, struggling to connect with a loving, compassionate God, spiritually alienated from Him;