“Mommy! Jessica’s coloring herself purple!”
My five-year-old son announced the news at the top of his lungs. I froze in the midst of my kitchen clean-up duty. Into my mind flashed the memory of a purple marker, lying on the coffee table, which I’d passed by, intending to pick up later. It had been well within two-year-old Jessica’s reach.
“Where is she?” I asked Kenny.
“In the chair,” Kenny said, pointing to our new, leather recliner.
Visions of purple-striped tan filled my head, and I dashed into the living room. Jessica sat looking small in the midst of overstuffed comfort, a purple marker in one hand. Her right leg bore a single streak of purple marker. Her left leg had received the brunt of her artistry.
“Jessica,” I said slowly, in that I-know-what-you-did-so-you-might-as-well-admit-it voice—the one I imagine God used in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned. “Did you color yourself purple?”
Jessica blinked at me. She looked down at the marker in her hand, then back up at me.
“No,” she said innocently.
“Jessica,” I said in a less forbidding voice, hoping that taking the pressure off would cause her to own up to the obvious truth, “you colored yourself purple, didn’t you?”
“No,” she said. “Well, I colored this one.” She pointed to the leg with the single marker streak.
“Somebody else colored the other one?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm,” she said, nodding her head all the way up and all the way down.
“Who colored it?” I asked.
“Umm…a bunny,” she said.
“A bunny colored your leg?”
“Yep.” Clearly, in her mind, that settled the matter, effectively absolving her of any guilt.
Later, my husband called from work, and I told him about the incident. “I caught her with the evidence,” I said later to my husband. “I took the marker from her hand, and she still lied to me.”
“There’s a devotion in that,” my husband said.
He was right.
Too often, we mommies do the same thing Jessica did. We try to find ways around our guilt.
Do any of these excuses sound familiar?
My husband failed to be sensitive when I was having a bad day already, we say, trying to justify our disrespectful words.
But I’ve told those kids a thousand times! we sigh, remembering our tone of voice that was much too harsh and loud.
We’re experts at trying to blame our guilt on others while expecting our husband and children to toe the line.
But you know what? We don’t fool anyone. Deep down, we know we’re guilty. Our family knows it, too. And our omniscient Creator certainly sees and knows.
We need to be willing to do the same thing I wanted Jessica to do—the same thing we all want our children to do when caught in some act. We need to confess to our Father—without excuses and without playing the blame game—that we’ve sinned.
Yes, there may be consequences for our actions. But we will also find, as Jessica would have found, forgiveness and a loving embrace. Remember that Jesus came, not to condemn us, but to save us. God isn’t waiting for us to confess just so He can zap us with lightning. He wants to hear our words of repentance so He can cleanse us and restore our relationship with Him—so that we can start anew.
We may not get to play with the purple markers anymore. But there are many things to do that are more fun anyway.
1 John 1:9—If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to purify us from all unrighteousness.
John 3:16—For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.