SO stupid

Started innocently enough… I heard 3 big sneezes in a row come from the bathroom, so I peeked in on my way to the kitchen, and saw a big nasty trail of yellow coming from Kitty’s nose. “Go clean up your face with a tissue, and BLOW, pumpkin!” 5 seconds later, I breezed back by, and peeked in again. Kitty still standing in the same place, no tissues anywhere around, and the yellow was GONE.

(Here my stomach lurched the first time).

“Kitty, did you blow your nose like I asked you to?”

Kitty squirmed. Her arms, fingers, legs and feet started to twist into knots, along with her mouth.

“Kitty, answer me.”

Tiny little face looked up imploringly, every gesture saying “PLEASE don’t make me say it, mom.”

“Kitty… did you eat that?”

Lip started to quiver. Tiny “yes” escaped the knotty mouth. Stomach lurched the 2^nd time, and I grabbed the edge of the tub to stay upright (never have been good with little kid gross stuff, if you can’t tell).

“To your room, pumpkin. We need to talk.”

I gave myself a few minutes to settle the stomach down, and find composure. Then, the discussion. First point, “Gross, baby!! So germy & bad for you!!” Second (and most important), “Baby, you flat out disobeyed me.” At this point, she started screaming “I’m SO stupid!!” over and over and over again. All I could do was gather her up in my arms, and tell her over and over and over, “Pumpkin, you are NOT stupid. You were wrong. You were disobedient. But not stupid.”

And I looked into her big blue eyes, and I saw my reaction EVERY single time I disobey, every time I am blatantly wrong. It’s easy to say “I’m stupid.” So hard to say “I’m wrong. Please forgive me.” Not sure if there’s a Divine equivalent of the stomach lurch, but if there is, I can only imagine the gross things I’ve done that have given Him cause to feel one

So it’s a big deal, and super-hard, to learn to be wrong in a healthy way. I know I don’t have it down. In our home we use the following paradigm to ask forgiveness: “I was wrong to _____. Will you please forgive me?” Those are extremely difficult words to say. I’m BAD at saying them, even when they need to be said. “I’m so stupid” is so much easier. But thankfully there are people in my life who give me grace so I can ask for forgiveness safely. And they don’t rub it in when I do it badly…

…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…

 Romans 5:8