"Almost Glad that I Had Sinned:" A Reason for Regret and a Reason for Cheer

On a popular {food} blog I sometimes read, the writer mentioned that she had made many {non-food-related} "mistakes" in her life ... and that she was sorry for none of them. They made her, she claimed, into the person she has become, a person of whom she is very proud.

I blinked at the screen a few times and re-read the paragraph, wanting to ascertain that I'd read that correctly. She was proud of her mistakes? She regretted none of them?

Wow.

Well, I'll speak for myself only - I regret my "mistakes."

Yes, unfortunately, they have left their stamp on my life and person. And I'm not proud of them. I regret them. I regret my faithlessness when I haven't trusted God's perfect will for me, when I have believed the lie that He is not sufficient, when I have turned to my own paths and means, giving reason for those outside the fold to jeer and think less of the God whom I serve.

And yet...

Yet I am glad for the means of mercy which my errors have been. A stream through which our Heavenly Father could pour His redeeming love, a canvas upon which He could paint a picture of His unconditional faithfulness.

I am sorry for my mistakes - for my sins. I look at them and sigh.

And then I look at Christ. At His perfect beauty. At His supreme goodness. At His great love for sinners. At His passion to make them holy.

Sinners such as I am. "Mistakers" such as I. "Regreters" such as I.

It is the kind of mercy that, as George MacDonald says in Phantastes, "makes me almost glad that I had sinned," that I might be forgiven.

My musically-inclined husband has tattoos on his shoulders: treble clefs indelibly printed on his skin. He isn't proud of them; they remind him of his days of darkness, before he met his Savior. People have tried to be helpful and mentioned to me that tattoos can be removed... yet I prefer that my husband keeps them. They're a continual visual reminder of God's grace to my husband and to me, in giving me a godly man who has turned his face away from his past sins.

And perhaps, perhaps, perhaps... I wonder is that how we - how I - must come to regard all those things we regret ...?

Not as badges of honor because they've "made us into the people we are..."

But humbly, with gratitude that He works all things together for good... as evidence of His very magnificent grace?

"Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, which You have sworn to our fathers from days of old."

Micah 7:18-20 {nkjv}

 

Cutting Out the Middle Man

"The child sees things as the Father means him to see them, as he thought of them when he uttered them. For God is not only the Father of the child, but of the childhood that constitutes him a child, therefore the childness is of the divine nature."

-George MacDonald

{The Prayer - William-Adolphe Bouguereau}

I have a 21-month-old niece who lives in the same house as I do. Her name is Debbie. Recently, she has just begun talking. Our conversations recently have gone something like this - I've noticed the pattern:

{example 1}
Me: Did you do a big poo-poo?
Debbie: Big-big. Jesus. helps.
Me: Jesus helped you?
Debbie: Okay! {her "yes"}

{example 2}
Me: Auntie needs to put ointment on Mr. P's eyeballs. {Mr. P is my pug, with whom Debbie "helps" me.}
Debbie: Boo-boo. P. Eyeballs!
Me: He needs his medicine, doesn't he?
Debbie: Jesus. Better!
Me: Jesus will make his eyeballs better?
Debbie: Okay!

{example 3}
Me: The flowers are so pretty.
Debbie: Pretty-pretty. {similar to the mouse in Cinderella!}
Me: Who makes the flowers grow?
Debbie: Jesus!

And so on... and on... and on. :-)

You know, often the word "simple" garners a poor reputation. But I, for one, desire the simple faith of the child. Debbie sees all around her - everyday body functions, healing, flowers growing - as coming directly from Jesus. She doesn't dispute the "secondary causes," but they don't make a difference in her calculations.

Whether Mr. P gets medicine or not, to Debbie, the healing comes straight from Jesus, as directly as it did for the woman who touched His garment. {Mark 5:25-29}

Whether her grammy puts extra effort into the flowerbeds or not is of no real concern to Debbie; the growing comes from the hand of Christ.

Whether her intestines induced her "poo-poo -- big-big!" or not? What does it matter? Jesus is the One who caused it.

If a butterfly hatches from its cocoon, Debbie knows - believes completely that Jesus gave it wings.



I would like to cut those secondary causes out of my calculations {I didn't say out of my knowledge}, for I often {in my heart} consider them of more bearing on the situation than the Jesus Who bid the waters to be still. And Who {still} sees every sparrow fall.

What about you, dear readers?