Humbled Again By My Son

I was working in the kitchen today when Stephen came and stood quietly next to me. I glanced down at him and he said in a barely audible voice, "Mommy, remember the other night when you told us not to put any leaves down the drain in your bathtub? Well, I put one down there and I didn't tell you the truth."

(Brief explanation here: we have an ivy plant growing next to the tub and I caught the boys pulling leaves off of it during their bath the other night. Most of the leaves were scooped out, but I saw a few still floating when I let the water out of the tub, hence the warning not to put any leaves down the drain. I had asked if they had put any down there and he told me no.)

Wow. My heart melted and I sat down on a chair and scooped him up in my arms. My little five-year-old boy had been tormented by this lie for the past few days and was trembling because he just wanted to tell me the truth! I held him and hugged him and reassured him that I loved him even more for confessing this to me because I knew it was not an easy thing for him. I told him that he did an honorable thing by telling me about it instead of holding onto a lie and that God was pleased with his truth. He sat there hugging me with his head on my shoulder not saying anything, but it was so obvious that his little burden had been lifted by confessing his sin to me.

Once again, my perspective was flipped over to see what God sees when we confess our sins to Him! He doesn't scream and yell and call us all kinds of names and push us away or reject us or anything else that we are afraid He might do! No! He scoops us up, sooths us with His voice in our ear, holds us close and forgives us! I tried to convey to Stephen that if he would have told me the truth right away, he wouldn't have had to worry about this the past few days. Same goes for me! I hesitate to confess an attitude or a wrong thought or even an action to the Lord because I'm ashamed or think He won't be pleased with me any more. How wrong can I be? He loves me even more than I loved my son when he finally broke down and confessed! It would be so much easier to come to Him immediately to make things right again, just like for Stephen.

I have been humbled and taught a valuable lesson from my son, once again.