I know who I am. I know my past. I know my heart. I know my thoughts. I know the dark corners. I know the skeletons. I know what I am capable of. I know the heartache I’ve caused. I know who I’ve pushed away. I know who I’ve cast aside. I know I let other people down. I know how I’ve neglected you. I know how self-focused I am. I know I insist upon my own way. I know I let you down.
And still, continue here
If you’re a mom, you’ve probably given yourself one or more, “Mom Awards”. You know the ones I mean: “Worst Mom of the Hour/Day/Week/Month/Year or Decade”; and the most despised: “Worst Mom of the Century”.
I have a closet full! There are days when I received all of them in one afternoon.
I’ll never forget one of the “Worst Mom” awards I received… I gave it to myself the winter before this family photo was taken.
In my defense… it was winter, and it’s not easy being a mom of preschoolers cooped up in the house for days. Danny had developed a habit of masterfully pushing Bobby down every time he saw Bobby standing still. I warned Danny: If you do that again, I’m going to push you!
Danny pushed. Bobby fell and started crying. I gave Danny the “you’re in for it now” look!
Immediately, Danny started to quickly back away, in stocking feet on a vinyl floor. I reached toward him, he lost his balance, slipped, fell and hit his head on the cabinet. He started crying. Bobby was still crying. And I sat down beside them, crying.
That night, sitting between Dan’s bed and Bob’s crib, still crying, I wrote them both a letter of apology in case they ever recalled this horrible day in therapy as adults. I still have the letters. Just in case.
There, it’s out there. I’m the worst mom ever. And, I have more stories I could tell…..
Guilt? Yes! Feeling like a failure? Yes! Like King David, I cried out to the Lord:
“My guilt overwhelms me – it is a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins. I am bent over and racked with pain. All day long I walk around filled with grief.” – Psalm 38:4-6 NLT
There is no way to remove the guilt. We may try to cover over it with kind acts – I probably made cookies for them later on, or let them watch their favorite TV show. I may have tried to ease my conscience by telling myself I was doing my best to be a good mom. I had to keep my word. I had to teach Danny right behavior. It was just a little bump. Barely nothing. And surely nothing in the grand scheme of things. And, while all of that was true, my heart ached because I had hurt my child by my own hand.
There was only one way to remove the guilt: Come to Jesus and confess the sin.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. – 1 John 1:9NIV
“For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean…” – Hebrews 10:22 NLT
As a mom I’ve gotten really good, I think, at asking for forgiveness, both from the Lord and from the boys. Sometimes now, the boys will laugh at me when I bring up long ago events and ask for their forgiveness. It is worth the laughter because I love to dance in the freedom that comes with forgiveness.
Every now and then I see her. She is a happy little girl with blonde hair sitting on a tricycle with the handlebars broken off. There are other toys around for her to play with. But she always chooses the tricycle. It’s not safe. If she were to fall, she could really get hurt. But she doesn’t seem to care. She pedals and with both hands on the gooseneck, she tries to steer. I’ve never seen her actually succeed. But she’s always smiling.
There is something about her that makes me think of the verse in Matthew 18 “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Why didn’t Jesus say, “unless you become mature and serious and all grown up?”
What is Jesus looking for? What must we change? What is it about little children that we’re missing?
I’ve thought a lot about that recently. I’ve thought about what it means to be a little child, to be small, to be insignificant, and to be little.
The little ones are totally dependent on the big ones to take care of them. They are told when to get up, and when to go to bed, and though they may whine or complain, they still go. They are told when to eat, and what to eat. They are given limited choices, this shirt or that shirt. Every day in the future is ‘tomorrow’ and every day in the past is ‘yesterday’, there is no real understanding of ‘time’. And, they never worry about whether or not the rent will be paid, or if there is food in the pantry, they just assume there is, or will be.
The little ones trust the big ones completely.
The little ones are not afraid to laugh at silly things. They poke bugs. They wear diapers. They can’t pronounce all their words. And they’re not embarrassed by any of it. They are content to sit and hear the same story told over and over. They like to cuddle before bed. They like to hear bedtime songs sung off key.
The little ones just like to be around the big ones.
I think this is what Jesus wants. He wants us to abandon all of the things that separate us from him and from each other. Independence. Self-protection. Worry. Complaining. The need to have everything ‘just right’.
He wants us to trust him completely.
He wants us to like being around him.
It is not easy to be little. It’s not easy to let go of all the things that keep us from sitting at Jesus’ feet and worshiping with abandon. People might be watching. We might get laughed at. There’s work to be done.
Does God ever bring you a memory, like me on my broken tricycle, to remind you that it is OK to let down your guard and be little, so that you might more fully love and trust your very Big God?
Marcia Furrow 
