little mouths

We spent the morning playing and laughing and talking and...fighting. It is simply baffling how one minute our kids can love each other completely and do the opposite the next minute. One minute the kids can be laughing and the next, they're crying. Out of their mouths come joyful chatter and songs, and just moments later they're filled with hateful, biting words. And now Carly is laying on her bed, joyfully singing about Meshak and Abednego and Abraham obeying God's laws. Isaac is humming while rolling around on his bed. Oh, there's a loud, "I'M NOT TIRED!!!"

Yesterday, we read about Adam and Eve and how sin came into the world. This story is not new to the kids, but they were engrossed as I read it, more so than they have been in the past. This particular version from Leading Little Ones To God described sin and evil in more depth than most Biblical children's books do. It's a little scary teaching kids about Satan, but he's real. We can't act like he doesn't exist. The lesson described the fall with "Oh, that was a sad, sad day. All the happiness was gone out of the hearts of Adam and Eve. And on that day all the unhappy things and wicked things began. Satan was glad. But Adam and Eve were sad. And God was sad." Isaac looked at me and said in a very quiet, serious voice, "That makes me sad that she ate the wrong fruit." After we talked about it, he concluded, "I would eat the right fruit."

There's good and evil. We try, even vow to do good, but we fail. Colossians 1:21-22 reminds me, "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation." I was a joyful mommy at 10:05 a.m. At 10:06, one kid hit another, and I became a roaring monster; the roar carried out the front door, where our neighbor was quietly sitting observing. Whoops. Minutes later, all was well. Do all moms do that? Growl one second and sweetly answer the phone the next?

In Jerry Bridges' Transforming Grace, he writes:

The prophet [Isaiah] said of God, "You have put all my sins behind your back [38:17]." When something is behind our back, it is out of sight. We can't see it anymore. God says He has done that with our sins. It is not that we haven't sinned or, as Christians, do not continue to sin. We know we sin daily - in fact, many times a day. Even as Christians our best efforts are still marred with imperfect performance and impure motives. But God no longer "sees" either our deliberate disobedience or our marred performances. Instead He "sees" the righteousness of Christ, which He has already imputed to us.

This is hard for me to comprehend or understand, but this is part of what Bridges calls God's grace.