I feel like I had a breakthrough moment as a parent today. I hope no one minds if I share. Here is the background. I bought a picture frame at Ross recently, it was exactly what I was looking for. They only had one left. It holds 15 pictures and it matches the other frames in our living room. It sat in my trunk for a week because I hadn’t quite gotten the pictures developed that I wanted to put in it, and thanks to snow, I was put off even more. Today I am snowed in (or rather, iced in due to road conditions that would make my sweet Volvo cry). I decided that although I didn’t have the exact pictures I wanted, I had been working really hard on reorganizing the house and I wanted to fill up that empty spot on the wall. I dug up 15 pictures, put a movie on for Jake, handed the tape dispenser to Sonora Grace to chew on, and then I began taping on pictures. Jake sees me tape a picture of Aunt Wendy on the paper frame (that goes behind the glass), and he freaks out. “I see it, I hold this one.” So I let him have it. As he comes to get it, he puts his foot on the frame and giggles and I tell him not to step on it, that it might break. He giggles and puts his foot on it again. So I stay more sternly, “no sir, I will spank you if you do that again.” So he heads back to the couch, and folds up the picture of Wendy, and holds it close and is perfectly content until he sees a picture of Fifi, and he wants that one too. So he comes back down, purposely steps onto the edge of the frame, and smiles at me. I tell him no and he backs up, trades his picture of Wendy for the picture of Fifi and heads back to the couch. I’m busy taping pictures on, and keeping Sonora away, and Jake is crinkling the picture and folding it and I tell him to stop because it’s one of my favorite pictures of myself standing with my Mom and sister, and so I ask him for it, and ask him to help me tape it on. He jumps down from the couch, and I’m not even sure if it was on purpose but his second step went right onto my the center of the frame and you guessed it, smashed it into a million pieces.
The sample paper was over the glass, and on top of that was the cardboard frame I was working with, so he wasn’t hurt at all. But I was not a happy camper. The bad part of the story is that I very briefly explained that I asked him to be careful and he wasn’t, so I spanked him. I’ve been trying to spend more time before spankings explaining the essence of disobedience to him. So I told him that he “broke Mommy’s picture,” and “now Mommy has to throw away all of the glass,” and “Mommy was really excited about her new picture.” I picked him up and put him in a chair so he could watch me clean it up. He was crying softly but starting to calm. I was carefully moving the glass into the bag when a small piece moved fast and went into my finger. “Ouch!” I shouted, and Jake sobbed harder. “I so sorry Mommy,” he choked out. “It’s ok, I forgive you,” I said as I kept cleaning up the glass. “Mommy got big ouchie on her finger?” I was starting to feel bad that he was crying so hard, I didn’t want him to feel guilt to the extent that my finger was now bleeding! So I crawled over to him and gave him a hug. ‘It’s ok, Mommy is fine. I forgive you,” he settled into sniffles and I threw away the bag of glass and went to get the vacuum cleaner.
I’ve been reading a lot of parenting books lately, thinking, How can I apply this? How can I teach Jake the gospel through discipline? It’s been on my mind constantly, and as I started up the vacuum it all clicked together in my mind. Before I plugged the vacuum in I went over to Jake and knelt in front of him.
“Do you know what sin is?” He shook his head no.
“Well Jesus has some rules that he likes us to follow. One of them is listening to mommy and daddy.” Jake‘s bottom lip pokes way out and the tears start falling. He loves Jesus very much and I knew that he didn’t want to disappoint Him so I quickly went on because that is not the point.
“Listen, Jesus died on the cross so you don’t have to feel guilty for what you did. I know you’re sorry and I forgive you, and so does Jesus.” Blank stare accompanied by a pouty lip, “that means Mommy isn’t mad at you anymore. Listen, Mommy is going to vacuum all of that glass up and that’s what Jesus does. When we make mistakes, we ask Him to help us and to forgive us and He cleans it all up.” Jake begins sobbing inconsolably. He opens his arms for me to hold him, and I do. I recognized the cry, although I didn’t experience mine until I was 20, when I realized I was fallen and there was nothing I could actually do about it. But I knew Jesus loved me. “Watch Mommy vacuum the glass up, it’ll all be over after that.” After our cuddle, I vacuumed and he watched. He was much calmer. I let him help me tape pictures on, and salvaged the frame, although it doesn’t have glass and it may look kind of different from my other pictures. It’s really a small price to pay for what Jake learned today. I thought about all of the Supernanny’s I’ve watched, Mom’s holding Jo and crying, “I really want to do a good job at this but I’m so unhappy.” When I was talking to Jake, I have to admit that seeing him realize his fallen nature and sobbing was not easy, I love my son. However, it was fun to tell him the truth. It was fun to bring him into repentance, and offer up my forgiveness. I understood “mommy ministry” for the first time.
I've heard of a certain class of believer that negates there being any negative consequence to sin. It baffles me, but maybe that is because I’m a sinner who has seen plenty of consequences to my terrible decisions. Jesus has restored me. Yet there is still evidence of mistakes. Jake walked around for an hour after the incident, “I brote it Mommy,” “Mommy got ouchie on her finger from picture broden,” “I brote it,” and I reassured him that it was completely ok now, no more worries. The frame is still busted. Jesus can’t restore the glass (well I guess he could if he wanted!), but he’s not going to in this case. We broke it. But he’ll help us clean up the mess we made, and he’ll make good out of it, like how Jake and I worked together afterwards. Like how I will be much more careful in the future about where I work with glass (the middle of the living room floor is probably not smart!). I’m hardly concerned about whether or not there is negative consequence to sin, I’m just grateful that we don’t have to feel guilt about our sin and that we get a new start. I think that is the point of Jesus, that we’re “pure as cotton and white as snow” after we seek forgiveness, and we don’t have to earn his redemption or feel guilty that we fall short of it. It’s there, it’s free, and it’s freedom. I realized Jake wasn’t going to let go of the guilt without some prayer, so before naptime we held hands and prayed that both of us would do better about accepting God’s forgiveness and love.
I hope I’m not acting outside humility here. That is certainly not my intention. Quite frankly I am ecstatic because I’ve been praying for wisdom and the Lord totally gave me the words to say, so know that I do not boast of my own doing. It’s all God, and I am so grateful that I don’t have to do this alone. No one does. Thank you Jesus for redemption.
….And if you come to my house and see my glass-less picture frame that takes up ½ of my living room wall you will not judge me because you know the story behind it!
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