Mistakes
I have been thinking a lot lately about how a big part of my job as “mom” is to help the kids learn to not make foolish mistakes, and that seems rather ironic to me. It has struck me rather strongly that I still make mistakes as an adult - like with the budgets (I’m catching up with a year’s worth of them now in preparation for the taxes and it’s amazing how clear the patterns are when you get the “big picture” this way). I often make mistakes by being impatient or lazy or careless. Big mistakes. Ones involving judgement and choice of priorities. Some of them carry some strong consequences that cannot be avoided (unlike spilled milk and a broken glass which are easily cleaned up and the issue is quickly resolved). Mind you, there are no real crises here, just realization that my kids are going to fail, and so will I. They don’t grow out of it. They will survive their teen years, Lord willing, but just because they’re 20, or 30, or even going on 40, it’s not like we stop making BIG mistakes and getting into trouble (and I assume the pattern continues but I’m not there yet).
It’s humiliating to have to go to my husband and say “I did it again” or “help, I messed up, what do we do?” or “guess what I did today honey (very ashamedly)” and the like. I really don’t want him to be unhappy with me. I want him to trust me. I don’t like disappointing him. And I sure hate to admit I’ve really messed up. And yet I do fail, a lot. I do yell at the kids. I do overspend the budgets. I do use the wrong tool and destroy what I was attempting to fix, etc. I do knock things over. I have, albeit rarely and not recently, nor on purpose, run red lights, missed stop signs, and gone the wrong way on a one way street. And we have the same conversations over and over again. This didn’t surprise me, but the fact that I think I thought you outgrew it did. I somehow thought we were teaching our kids to learn to be careful so that they would stop making mistakes and live happily ever after. I guess the reality is we’re teaching them how to handle their mistakes in a godly way. It strikes me that this is the area where we are really doing our teaching and molding.
How do we handle our mistakes? Do we cover them up? Do we pretend they didn’t happen? Do we gloss them over? Do we apologize? Do we make excuses? Are we surprised by them? Are we afraid of them? Honest about them? Do we have an attitude about them? Have we become deadened to the seriousness of some of them and their consequences? I know I’m personally ashamed to admit mine, esp. to Steve whom I’m afraid will be upset with me, especially when it’s not the first time I’ve really messed up in a particular area.
I think many mistakes are just that - simple mistakes (I broke a piece off our vacuum day before yesterday - I’m still not sure how - which I had to tape back on - and last night I squirted a tomato on my budgets - now they’re stained). And many are more serious and are potentially caused by sin like being lazy, distracted (failing to focus on the task at hand), or careless or out of control. Being proud, pushing the envelope and chafing against the bit, dishonesty, ignoring the rules, those are pretty bad and I do all of these at times, which can in turn cause me to make more mistakes!
What does God say about this? In I John 1:8, God says that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and his truth is not in us. Romans 6:23 says that the penalty of our sin is death. And yes, I knew I didn’t outgrow my sin, but I somehow thought I’d stop making so many mistakes! That somehow if we could get our kids through their teen years with out making too many serious mistakes they’d “be ok”. I am encouraged by the rest of Romans 6:23 and I John 1:9 which tell me that I have a way out - not freedom from making mistakes (don’t I wish!), but a place to go with them. God gives us the gift of life if we believe in him - and he is willing to forgive our sins if we confess them to him, if we come to him openhandedly to learn to see them as he does. He is faithful - he will forgive us. And it is this seeking him, and confessing my mistakes, acknowledging my failures, being humbled yet not letting them get the better of me by causing me to sin more by covering up, telling lies, or running away from my problems (all of which I’m tempted to do) that he so desires to see in me, and works out in my life through his spirit. He desires me to model his work in me by living it out in front of my kids. Please pray for us that we’d be faithful to obey God and seek him so that not only will we be forgiven, but that it may be an example to those around us, esp. our kids and that all may know that it is God who does the work, the changing and the teaching, and amazingly, he uses our very mistakes, sinful or not, as the prime opportunity to do so!
