The Red or the Blue Pill

Some days I feel like I'm in the Matrix, not that I have any illusions that I'd look good in all black leather garb, but sometimes I feel so overwhelmed with the shocking and painful reality that the world is steeped in sin (both my own and others') that I wonder how it is even possible go on.  On days like these I wish someone was offering me the blue pill.  I want to gulp it down and return to bed, where I would wake with no knowledge of such painful truths.  It would be the easy way.

But, it is not the better way.  I think truth is the better way, no matter how painful.  Sometimes it is painful because you realize it is your own sin that is jacking up the world around you.  Other times it is the sin of others that is wreaking havoc in our lives and we are powerless to control it.  Either one puts us at a fork in the road.  Do I take the blue pill and ignore my sin?  Do I hope that this drug of complacency can numb me to the pain I feel from others?  Or, do I carefully reach for the red pill and face what God might be trying to reveal to me?  Do I decide to grow in truth whether or not others make that choice?

Clearly, the right answer is the latter choice, but it is by far the most costly.  Death of self is necessary.  Humility and determination are the only weapons we are allowed. 

Yet, sometimes I am tempted to feel that it is hopeless.  But the Lord reminds me that He is a God of restoration.  He can see inside my dark heart and inside the darkness of others' and He knows how to make it right, even if I do not.  And, ultimately, if I give myself to Christ, the joys and the suffering both will lead to being more like Him and being able to accomplish more of His purposes...and that is what the journey is all about.

I Would Like to Take a Moment to Apologize to My Mother

Humiliation.  A screaming child, head thrown back, tears streaking down his face.  People from every dining table looking at us.  I saw no faces as I walked (trying not to run in shame), just a blur of disapproval as I escorted (by escorted I mean grabbed and carried) my child through the restaurant, from the very back of the restaurant mind you, outside to a nice secluded place behind our van where I could administer proper parental attention to such a situation. 

Now any who are concerned at this point in the story, fear not.  No corporal punishment was used, but there surely was corporal punishment going on in my mind.  We had a little "Come-to-Jesus" conversation, in which I expressed my extreme disapproval for his family shaming behavior.

Apparently, our heart-to-heart in the parking lot made an impression.  "Mama, you mad?"  He asked.  Um, yes.  How ever did you pick up on that?

After a bathroom pit stop we headed back.  "Well that was humiliating," I said. "Yep" he quips. Awesome. You have no idea, child.

But, we went back to the table and he ate that freakin broccoli. "Mama angry," he told Andrew.  Thanks, Captain Obvious.

I couldn't really look anyone in the eye after that and felt much better when were able to leave the restaurant and put the whole shameful memory in the past.  However, even now I am feeling some residual second-hand embarrassment.

So, I just want to say sorry, Mom!!  It's my payback time.