Naughty or nice?
This month has seen an explosion in naughtiness in my children, naughtiness on the scale I have never seen before because two-year-old Harvey, though often annoying, but did not have so many novel ideas. Like Tuesday, when I packed up veggie sides and chocolate covered matza to go to grandma's family passover, the children stood outside on the porch and pitched every piece of recycling over the banister and into the bushes. Or today while I was folding their laundry, Harvey and Zion went into my bedroom and removed all Dan's shirts from their hangers. Imagine folding two full bins of tiny laundry and then walking into the next room to find the contents of an entire closet bar on the floor.
I think I'm parenting? I have not yet BEGUN to parent!
This week we celebrate a holiday whose message is very much the opposite of secular Christmas. My children will not be added to some imaginary list marked "naughty." There will be no easter basket filled with coal. Tomorrow we remember the great mystery of God's love for us. We were naughty and someone else took the fall for it.
There is no messiah of cleaning who will hang up shirts and pick trash out of the bushes for me, unfortunately. But I do praise the one who loves me even though my life is an unruly heap of floor laundry. I am a rhododendron smeared with ketchup and half covered with junk mail.
Thank you Jesus for taking the fall for me. And the children said: Amen.