"we encourage" - Recognizing Sin

Happy Tuesday friends! Sorry "we encourage wasn't up last week. Let's be honest...nothing was posted last week. I had one of those weeks where I rarely knew what day it was and it was over before I knew it.






I had a very eye openig conversation with J this weekend. I was truly amazed by her ability to look at her own heart issue and articulate it.
Over the weekend J had two girlfriends spend the night. Can I just tell you that it did make me wish just for a minute that I was 7 again. It was so fun watching them spend time together.

Here they are in the completely awesome fort Hubby made.

At one point during the weekend the girls were making bracelets. There were lots of fun things to decorate the bracelets with. Stickers, rinestones, etc.
During the bracelet extravaganza one of J's friends came out to tell me she was trying to cheer J up.
Here is what I'm thinking, "What? Cheer her up? She has her two best frinds over and she is making jewelry. What could possibly be wrong?"

So I brought her out to have a talk.

I could hardly believe the wisdom in this little girl.

What I thought she was trying to say was that one of her friends had gotten a sticker she wanted to use and it was making her sad. So of course I instantly launched into my mom talk.

You know the one.

The one where I tell her there are plenty of stickers and I understand that she is disappointed but she should put her guests above herself and just enjoy their time together.

This is the moment in time when my 7 year old daughter taught me a lesson...

"Mom, I'm not sad about the stickers. I'm glad my friends got them. I'm sad because I know I shouldn't care that they got the stickers first. I was being envious and I don't want to be. It makes me sad I was feeling that way."

I'm sorry, can you repeat that?!

My daughter recognized she was being envious.

She recognized it, knew it was wrong and it upset her. What an amazing moment. I'm so grateful for the conversation that followed. We were able to discuss sin, the fact that everyone sins and how we are called to deal with it.
As I later thought about our conversation together it struck me that I know many adults who can't or choose not to recognize their own sin. Myself included.

How many of us ignore our sin?
Minimize our sin?
Rationalize our sin?
Repeat our sins over and over again?
Hide our sin?

My daughter brought something into the light for me.

I want to encourage all of us to recognize our sin, confess it, ask forgiveness for it and do better.