How Did You Sin Today?

Because I absolutely must remember this.

Our friend, who is also our church’s youth pastor, was hanging out at our home last night. We had talked about lots of things, but I think everyone was taken pretty off-guard when my 5-year-old started asking around the table, “How did YOU sin today?” as if he were asking what you had for lunch.

While Ryan seemed to be, ahem, taking a moment to consider how to answer, I decided to save him.

I wanted to explain first that the reason my child felt so emboldened was because he had recently had a day where he got into some trouble at school. He fessed up right when he got off the bus, and was really upset about it (maybe more upset about the trouble he was in, who knows…). During our talk, we discussed the verse we had been learning about temptation, how it relates to sin, and forgiveness. He was being especially hard on himself, so I went ahead and told him that everybody messes up sometimes. Even mommy! And yes, I told him how I had sinned that day. Apparently it stuck with him, and he thought this would be a regular dinner discussion.

Back to the dinner conversation:

Me: “B, honey, you don’t get to just ask people how they sinned. It’s personal.”
B: “What’s personal?”
Me: “Er. Um. It’s private. It means they don’t have to ta..”
B: “Only penises and hineys are private.”

Insert about 5 full minutes where NO ONE was able to talk because we took turns leaving the table to laugh in the other room.

I honestly don’t remember how I wrapped that conversation up.

This Year

Until age 33, I never had a before/after, defining moment in my life. I was actually ok with that. I was appreciative of the fact that nothing had stirred me up so hard that I was wondering if I would recover from it. I thought maybe being appreciative would protect me from one of those moments. I don’t mean to be dramatic (I know, you’re chuckling because I’m a dramatic person), but now I know, at age 33, what some of you have known for some time. I know that there are things you go through in life that you never fully recover from. It was kind of shocking! What?! These bodies that we get, they age…and every now and then, something might happen to this body that is irrevocable. I didn’t expect it this early! I suspected that it had happened as soon as things began going downhill in November, and the doctor that messed up (badly) on my neck procedure tried to hide that he was going pale while explaining that, in short, he didn’t really know why my neck muscles wouldn’t hold my head up anymore. And then when I was admitted to the neuroscience floor for emergency surgery, I couldn’t figure out how this was still my life. What on earth?

Guys, this year has kind of sucked. I know people wanted to tell me that I would recover and be all better soon, but in my gut, I knew something was just so not right. I just recently sat on the couch and told my friend about why January was so dark for me. I was immobilized because of the surgery, but no doctor had ever understood (or explained to me) the muscle injury, and that scared me, and I knew I wouldn’t be the same. It was terrifying to be in that much pain and never know how I would heal. I would cry and cry and cry when my son and husband were gone and then try to pull it together when they were home from school and work. I tried so hard to do some of the things that brought normalcy to my life because that was what brought us all sanity.

I was so embittered that it was stalling our adoption process. I had almost completed our home study that fall, only to now have to prove that I was capable of caring for a child to our social worker (which I wasn’t, for quite some time back then). You can know something is in God’s hands, and still be sad about it’s timing.

But time has moved on and so have we. 7 months of physical therapy has helped me regain so much strength in my neck, but I’m still surprised at the weakness that is left. The muscle spasms still overwhelm me sometimes and the neck and head pain, unfortunately, are present in many of my days. They don’t define, me though. What would life be without perspective? I can take each day as it comes because there is still much more to be happy about that there is to be sad about.

This all came flooding back because I sat in choir on Sunday night and we sang our first Christmas song. I was surprised to find myself sobbing buckets about 3 lines in. Like, ugly cry. Christmas has always been my absolute favorite. But last year, I couldn’t hold up my head for Christmas and for most of it, I was so drugged, I don’t even remember it. Friends decorated my tree and fed my family, and just took care of us, so that things would seem slightly normal for my child. And while singing, I remembered that a mere 10 days after this:

I dragged myself onto stage to sing this in our Christmas program:

I don’t even remember it. I just remember that I did it and I wanted to so bad because it made me feel normal. No wonder my husband thought I was crazy. I’m not really looking forward to facing Christmas again, and remembering all of that sadness. Isn’t it funny how music and smells can bring back memories? I resent that this tarnished Christmas some. So, I suppose we will have to work extra hard this year to gain it back. I will start with pulling those decorations out of boxes myself, with my precious family. God willing, with no one ailing on the couch. Please, Lord!

So, here’s to starting a brand new fall and winter season! Hopefully one that is drastically different from last year!

A great place to start

The beginning. It was amazing to watch the 3rd and 4th grade girls at Awanas re-hear the story that Pamela told last night. She reminded them that God created us each in His own image because he wanted so badly to have us to know and love. Watching them listen to this story, a story that most of them had heard before, was like watching people see Titanic for the 3rd time. You really want it to have a different ending this time! When Eve was given the choice of whether or not to partake of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil… when at that point she only knew of good and beauty she chose to know evil and sin, as well. The reaction of the children was fascinating. I’d forgotten what it was like to hear the story so freshly. One little girl even covered her ears. When Pamela asked why her ears were covered she said, “I hate this part. This is the part of the story when sin came into the world and sin separates us from God.” She was truly upset. Wow. She gets it. One of the things that makes God so incredible is that He is just and holy, but with all of this sin, we couldn’t be close to Him. There must be payment for sin. We understand justice, because as humans, we are made in His image and even we understand that it doesn’t seem fair when bad things go unpunished. That’s because we are made like God! Who would pay for something so serious? God loved us too much to make us pay the full price. Well, we didn’t have time to teach the entire Old Testament last night. So she skipped to the good part real quick (even though I think she’s going to dwell a bit more this fall). Jesus. We are not eternally separated from God because Jesus did pay for sin. And we can be completely forgiven. Oh, how He loves us.

As the Jesus Storybook Bible (Sally Lloyd Jones) puts it: “One day, he would make the world their perfect home again. And one day, he would wipe away every tear from their eyes.”… “Before they left the garden, God whispered a promise to Adam and Eve: ‘It will not always be so! I will come to rescue you! And when I do, I’m going to do battle against the snake. I’ll get rid of the sin and the dark and the sadness you let in here. I’m coming back for you!’ And he would. One day, God himself would come.”

Confession

I’ve seen a lot of mommy-self-berating on facebook recently. Sometimes getting online and seeing all of the happy posts leads us to believe that everyone’s lives are shiny, except our very own. Silly mommies. We all know this isn’t true and that we are all human.

So, I shall comfort you with a confession. Not all of my confessions- I don’t want to startle you. But don’t you dare read any further if you’re feeling extra judgy today, or if maybe you really ARE the perfect mom. Because then you might report me. In that case, move right along to Rachel Ray’s blog and get your dinner recipe and make your grocery list.

OK, so here it is:

I have been using money from B’s piggy bank to
…tip the pizza guy
…and pay for his school lunch
(wincing)…and help out the tooth fairy.
And we may or may not owe him quite a bit back from the Dierks Bentley concert.

I never have cash!