Not the Mad Eyes!

There are moments in parenting where one can be tempted to groan about having to deal with a particular situation, or choose to be thankful that a discipline issue that has come to surface has given you an opportunity to discuss early on a matter that would not be as favorable as the child ages.  Though the temptation to grumble was present, I had chosen to face the matter before me with the latter attitude.  It's not every day that one has real life examples to discuss stealing (hopefully).

I remember a particular incident of stealing when I was a young child.  My brother and I had discovered that our wrists were small enough to navigate the trap doors of toy vending machines.  With the right angle and wiggle, we could grasp one of those plastic bubbles containing a small toy.  In our mind it was brilliance, not stealing, so we didn't hide what we had done from our father once he had completed checking out at the local grocery store.  I don't remember the specific discussion that entailed, but I do remember suddenly recognizing what I had done was, in fact, stealing and feeling very ashamed for my father having to return the item to the store.

Bearing that in mind, I remained calm about the life lesson Colette would receive when I discovered a plastic pirate coin in her pants pocket while doing laundry.  I recognized it immediately as a "treasure" from a children's museum we had recently visited.  I was certainly embarrassed and ashamed, but I also knew that an opportunity laid before me to teach my child right from wrong.  In the hopes of drawing an immediate confession, I held up the coin for Colette to view and said, "Colette, would you like to tell Mommy where you got this?"

Her eyes grew large with fear and she shrugged her shoulders as convincingly as a 5 year old can muster.  She attempted to prevent her face from registering any recognition, but her eyes had already given her away (that, and she had been caught red pocketed).  I gently informed her that I already knew where it came from, so it would come as no surprise, but she was still required to tell me.  In a state of panic she declared, "Someone must have slipped it in my pocket when I was playing!"  *Note: How I have expertly not mentioned the location of discovery of the coin in question.

I will not replay the round-robin discussion that took place for the next half-hour with many tears over how I was not buying the innocent-bystander-of-someone-else's-deviance story.  What was frustrating for us both was the stalemate we had both achieved.  I knew that I could not allow her to hold onto that story, as there would be no learning from the infraction.  She volleyed back with accusations of how I never believed her and why couldn't I just see that it was the truth?!  But she was stuck in her misery; sniffling through her bedtime routine, eyeing me up to see if all was well between us.

I wanted all to be well, but I could not gather my distraught child into my arms and tell her she was forgiven and all would be okay, because she had not confessed to any wrong-doing.  There would be no learning in that.  In fact, I saw that it could lead down a very dangerous road, so I held my position, reminding her that I could not accept her story.

Finally, she said to me, "Mommy, I want to tell you what happened, but I can't tell you when you have the Mad Eyes."  For the record, my husband, having much experience in wifely eye expression interpretation, can tell you I was wearing my Serious Eyes and not the Mad Eyes, but nonetheless; I giggled.  It was the ice-breaker we needed.  I told Colette that she had mis-interpretted my eyes, but either way, I was smiling now.  I assured her that we would both feel better if she would tell me what happened and I silently prayed that she wouldn't try and pass off the same song and dance.

"I put the coin in my pocket because I liked it," Colette confessed.

And while no parent delights in their child confessing to something you thought you had taught them better about, I felt triumphant that we could move on to the forgiveness that had been dangling over her.  We discussed how it was not a good decision and how we could make the situation right.  And, we discussed how it was good that she was learning this lesson now, rather than when she was old enough for a police officer to get involved.  I promised her that she was forgiven and that Mommy and Daddy still love her and we hugged and snuggled as I had longed to do from the moment she chose to turn from the truth.

And I learned a lot about the release of confession.  Once again, as parenting has often lead me to do, I saw how frequently I am a crying and accusatory child holding to a distorted truth before an all-knowing God, Who longs to pull me out of my misery and offer the forgiveness sealed by the sacrifice of Christ.
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."  Matthew 23:37

How often we are not willing to accept the forgiveness, the comfort, and the protection of the wings of our Father who freely gives it to those who ask!  Instead we choose to writhe in our misery and make false claims about our situation.  This is how sin holds us captive from the love that God offers.  We create a barrier between ourself and God when we refuse to confess our sin.  Just as I could not gather Colette in my arms and offer her forgiveness without her confession, so do we create that same barrier with Christ.  How could I offer true forgiveness for a crime she did not own?  And though I could forgive her in my heart, she could not know the release of that forgiveness if she was not first willing to know the offense of her sin.  So though Christ's forgiveness was completed on the cross 2,000 years before you committed the sins He paid for, you will never know what a blessing that forgiveness is unless you openly place before Him your confession.  No fear of "Mad Eyes" as we humbly come to the cross.  Those are His Love Eyes; the ones that lead Him to the cross in the first place.    

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.  I will be found by you,' declares the Lord, 'and will bring you back from captivity.'"  Jeremiah 29:11-14  Do not be held captive in your sin, but seek Him and you will be found.