Our first home was a small little spot in the middle of nowhere we had the quiet visits of deer, moose, and the occasional bear. It was the perfect beginning to our young little family. Two bedrooms seemed spacious enough for three but with the arrival of our second child I was ready to move into town.I wanted to enjoy the luxury of spacious and convenient living. 
Sadly, due to an undesirable location for the rest of the planet, two bedrooms, and a bear trap in the front yard had made our little love nest an inconvenience to sell. That is until my superstitious mother stepped in with a solution.
She handed me a statue of the Patron Saint Joseph.
“My friend told me to bury this in your backyard and your house will sell quicker.”
I looked at her sleep deprived and wondering what she was holding, “What? What is that?”
“It’s the Patron Saint Joseph. Just bury it in the yard.”
I took it and buried it in the cupboard. Completely forgetting of its existence until her next visit. She found it in the back of my cupboard searching for the tea.
“You didn’t bury this yet?”
“No! No! I didn’t!”
She looked at me, “Humph! No wonder your house will never sell!”
It’s with that I sighed and grabbed my darling three-year old to teach him a lesson in superstitions. We walked out the backdoor with one Hail Mary we took sweet Joseph and buried him deep into the recesses of the ground.
It was at this point in my life I had two little ones under the age of three, a husband on the road for work, and a need of a weekly break to regain some form of sanity. My babysitter was a saving grace, a saint, the one rescue from the toils of spit and soiled diapers.
It was one afternoon I came home from a glorious afternoon of peace and coffee to discover my babysitter had dug out dear Saint Joseph from the backyard.
“We were playing in the backyard. Your son just started digging and kept saying he was looking for his buried treasure. Where did it come from?”
As she held the dear Saint Joseph in her hand with a perplexed look on her face – all I could do was lie. Yes! I lied out of fear of losing my babysitter! How would you react to a poorly dress woman with black circles under her eyes admitting “Yes! I did bury Saint Joseph in my back yard in order for my home to sell!”
It was with wise maneuvering and fear of judgement I did not come clean. Instead I looked at the statue, I looked at my sitter’s angelic and inquisitive face and replied , “I have no idea where that came from – Isn’t that bizarre!”
It was with that my babysitter left my home befuddled with so many questions on her mind…
Have you ever fibbed out of fear of judgement?
