Bella and I were out on a rare lunch date after her doctor appointments. When you have 5-sometimes-9 kids, its extra special to have time one-on-one with them, and they soak this up too. Bella wanted "pop" and "pizza" but mostly pop as she was sure to tell me over and over again until we finally pulled in to pizza ranch. Normally I'm chasing two or three littles and trying to make sure no one gets run over in the parking lot, making sure no one disappears in the restaurant, and that a major food fight doesn't break out. When it's just us, I have time to actually be that fun mom I used to be. I loved having the time to be patient with her while she slowly climbs out of the van and takes forever to walk in to the building so she can look at everything on the way. I love being able to let her come along and pick out what she wants from the buffet and hear her stories and sit across the table and soak up her sweet smile. I love that when I ask her if we should pray, she instantly sits up straight, sets down her pizza, makes the sign of the cross, folds her hands and prays along. I soak up every moment of the whole meal and when I go to get her dessert I get her dessert pizza AND a cookie slice just because I can. I'm probably beaming as I set the plate in front of her and watch her eyes grow big. This is the fun part of being a mom.
And then a man approaches our table and says "You don't know me from Adam, but I've been watching you and you are so impressive. You would make any Dad proud. When you prayed with your daughter earlier, that was great. You're doing a great job and I just had to tell you, you make a Dad proud."
It was really sweet of him to say. But I couldn't help as I thanked him to be sure to mention I have plenty of not-so-nice moments that he doesn't see.
Taking compliments has always been hard for me but I've been struggling with this a lot lately. I see my sin everyday. Up close and personal. Every second of it. And it's really ugly. I see all the times I yell at the kids, all the times I am so impatient and selfish and honestly just mean. Those sins run like a movie reel through my head the rest of the day, the week, the month. The worst ones stick the longest, replay over and over and over again. The times I let them down. The times I was too busy to notice. The 100 times I picked up my phone instead of playing with them. The books I didn't read. The list goes on almost forever of things I have failed at and I'm probably adding to it as I write this (like the wrinkled laundry I am avoiding...).
As we entered into Lent this week its absolutely a season of recognizing our sin. Repent and believe in the Gospel right? It's our yearly wake up call to recognize our sin. Yes. But it's something more than that and it took that outing with Bella combined with Xavier's reaction to Ash Wednesday Mass to get me to really see it this year...let me tell you about it...
Xavier was crabby and tired and spent the first half of the Ash Wednesday Mass that started 15 minutes after his normal bed time saying (yelling) "I no want to go to church!" But then the priest marked his face with mud and the night started looking up. Those tired 3 year old eyes perked up and started taking it all in. Eyes sparkling when we get back to our pew, he proudly says to me, "I bad guy!" I chuckle and wish he wasn't so excited about this news, and then he says with a huge grin like he just caught me sneaking a cookie, "You bad guy too!"
'He's not wrong', I'm thinking. That's actually pretty much the point, yes. He starts looking around and pointing out others with ashes on their faces and saying "He bad guy too!" He is thrilled, giddy even. And he is so right. We are all bad guys. We don't think like that often. When we tell the story we usually cast ourselves the good guy and make someone else out to be the bad guy. But we are all here on Ash Wednesday and all here at church on Sundays because we know we are bad. We sin. We fail. At everything. All the time. But I forget it. Sometimes I know I'm the bad guy and I'm sure I'm worse than anyone else in the room. They all seem pretty good and perfect even. Sometimes, I see my own sin but I don't see theirs, and I sometimes forget I am sitting shoulder to shoulder with other "bad guys", with other people who have also failed. Its the beauty of Ash Wednesday, for just one day, we can see it, we stop hiding our failures and we wear them on our face.
I kind of wish we could wear them all the time, just to set the record straight. So that someone might not see me out with my daughter at a restaurant and crown me mom of the year. If I was wearing those ashes then they could see what I see when I look in the mirror. And I was thinking of this as Bella and I walked out of the restaurant and I wished I could actually be that mom that man thinks I am.
And that's when I realized just what he said. "You don't know me from Adam." You don't get it, God was saying to me. You don't know me like you should because of sin. You don't know me. If you did, you would know I don't see you the way you see yourself. You would know I don't look at your sin. I see you the way that man did. Even though I know your worst, I still see your best. You are impressive and you make a Dad proud.
How long have I been forgetting the way my Father loves me? I see my sin but He sees the best in me. When I am covered in mud he sees beauty underneath. I can stack up my sins and failures for days and think that they cover up anything that might be good in me, and I forget that His blood covers my sins and He makes me new. I forget that it's the voice of the accuser who keeps calling me by my sins and telling me that my worth lies in my ability to overcome them and it's the voice of my father that says "you are good, you make a Dad proud."
It's the season of Lent and that absolutely means it's time to recognize our sin and return to Jesus. It is absolutely the time to recognize that we are all bad guys. And it is most certainly time to see and remember that we were created, and still are, GOOD. Wanted. Loved. By the King of the Universe. If a hundred other voices are telling you something differently, I hope tonight you recognize they are not the voice of truth. I hope you will hear the Father saying you are good, and I hope you believe it tonight. I hope you make it to the confessional to let go of that sin that is making it hard to block out the lies. I hope you resolve to do what you can to avoid sin in the future knowing that only by handing it over to Jesus will you ever really win that battle, and I hope, I really hope you know...
you make Him proud.
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