I So Messed Up

My mother’s voice came to me as I dashed about the house attempting to complete my “to do” list.

Friends were coming to stay with us for the weekend, and all of a sudden, I saw every scuff mark and nail hole on the walls.  “Use toothpaste to fill in the holes,” I remembered Mama telling me. However, after plugging a few holes with Colgate, I remembered that the walls at 3412-58th Street in Lubbock, Texas were white. My toothpaste filler jumped out at me like bright stars.  Now, I had another item on my to do list. Find our house paint and cover the white toothpaste. Since we’d recently done some updates to our kitchen, I knew where the paint was and began to tackle the white spots. A little dab here. A little dab there. But, and this is a huge “but,” the paint wasn’t the same color. Instead of looking at white dabs of Colgate, I was looking a dark blotches of the wrong color of paint. Hurriedly, I tried to blend it; smearing a bit of paint from one Colgate hole to the other. It wasn’t looking so good from where I stood, so I decided to step back. It was worse than when I was close up. I now had a speckled, spotted wall.

There was only one thing to do. Paint the wall; except I had done it to two walls.  “Paint the room….that’s all I can do at this point,” I heavily sighed – with emphasis on “heavily.” At this point, I wasn’t feeling so chipper about how my day was going.  My “fill the nail holes” on the To Do List that I thought I’d quickly check off; had now grown. “Paint the room” became number 17.  And, that opened a whole other list of “to do’s…”  tape off the ceiling, the baseboards, move the furniture, take down pictures, remove the drapes.

Panic started to set in when I realized I could smear a ton of the wrong color of paint all over the two walls and tell our guests that I’m testing colors before I paint my study. So far, this seemed to be the best solution. Or, I could just tell the truth.

Have You Ever So Messed Up

When writing “The Plan A MOM in a Plan B World,” guilt was one of the 18 “land mines” in our minds that I addressed. As a matter of fact, it was Chapter 2, “Languishing in Guilt or Rejoicing in Grace.”  Why is guilt such a parenting trap?  First, because we’re all going to make mistakes. And not only mistakes, we’re going to sin. Some of our sins will be intentional. We know not to do something and we do it anyway. However, other times, we unintentionally sin. We didn’t mean to fill tan walls with white toothpaste; or we did, but didn’t think it through. We hoped we could get by with a shortcut. We hoped no one would notice. We thought we could cover up what we’d done, but we couldn’t.

Have You Accepted Grace

I thought about not telling Keith what I did. But, it’s an unavoidable conversation. Maybe since I’m writing about it in the paper, he’ll laugh. I’m really dreaming now. And, God doesn’t laugh when we go off the beaten path of righteousness. But He is a God of grace. He is forgiving. Hiding, avoiding, attempting to cover our wrongs only digs us in deeper – whether we’re talking about parenting or painting. What’s the best solution? Be honest with God and our kids.  Tell God we’re sorry for parenting sins we committed; or sins we did that negatively affected our children. Then, open our hearts to receive His grace.

I’m about to call Keith and send him a picture of what I did.  I’m so thankful he’s a husband of grace!

“I acknowledged my sin to You; and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’; and You forgave the guilt of my sin.” Psalm 32:5

Heavenly Father, You set the example for us of extending grace. Thank you for Your mercy. Teach us to walk in Your ways and to repent when we fail.