Giving Away a Secret

Has anyone ever kept a secret from you that you wished they hadn’t?

One day when I was in high school, I found my friend, Regina, beside her locker crying. When I asked what was wrong, she said that people were saying terrible things about her. Mean girls had said that she was pregnant!

Regina and her boyfriend, Glen, became my friends through our church group. We frequently had pizza parties, bowled and watched movies together.

I began a crusade to stop the ugly rumors about my friend. Every time someone would say, “Did you hear that Regina is pregnant?” I would respond that it was a nasty rumor that wasn’t true.

I stayed by her side during the next few weeks. I dried her tears and told her that we would stop the girls from saying cruel things. One day, someone told me that he overheard Glen say that Regina was pregnant. I marched over to Glen in the lunchroom and asked him why he was saying that. He said that it was true. She was pregnant.

When I asked Regina about it, she said that she just didn’t know how to tell me because she didn’t want to disappoint me. I told her that I would have been more understanding about that, than for her to let me continue telling people she wasn’t pregnant.

The valuable life lesson I learned was to be sure something was true before defending it. I never asked her if she was pregnant. I just assumed she wasn’t. I wasn’t in on the secret and wished I had been.

I have a secret hiking trail that very few people know about. Today’s gift was to share my trail through the woods with my friend and her husband. They are welcome to tell others about my special place and I know they are glad to know my secret.

In Giving,

Robin