I waited for him to move his hand toward me, showing two splinters embedded into his palm. He gingerly cradled his hand into his body as a giant tear rolled down his cheek. He was two and a half with two splinters and very sad about it.
I sighed. This little boy (let's call him Charlie) choked back a sob.
"I need to take the splinters out so you can feel better," I said calmly, concealing some tweezers, and I felt a little sad too. He let out a wail with more tears and turned away from me. Okay. This was not going to be so easy. I continued to coax, but he only cried louder and kept his body turned away from me.
Time to text his mom. She suggested I start with asking Charlie to soak his hand in warm water.
It sounded good in theory. Charlie looked at the bowl like it contained flesh-eating acid and wailed "No." He moved further away, keeping his back to me, sobbing louder and holding his hand. He kept shuffling until he was in a corner of the room
I was reminded of this time I got a piece of a finishing nail embedded in my toe. I wish I could say that I responded more logically than a two year old, but that was not the case. I had been working on a home improvement project barefoot (which I don't recommend) and walked into a nail. If you thought that was a stupid move, I also tried to remove it myself with an X-Acto knife. Then, finally to top off this string of illogical decisions, I convinced myself it did not actually break off in my foot, and so I ignored it. Until it became infected.
Like I wrote in a recent post, spending time with two year olds has made me recognize how much they remind me of my relationship with God.
Sometimes when it comes to sin in my life I run to my Heavenly Father and ask him to take it out. Other times, I am like a two year old with a splinter (or a stubborn adult with a nail in her foot). I might try to "be good" on my own or simply ignore the problem altogether.
Unfortunately, without God working in my life, sin doesn't make its way out like a splinter sometimes does. If I'm not following after Jesus, ignoring what is ugly in my life just makes the ugly thing worse, and the infection spreads.
Sometimes I want to think about how Jesus brings me peace and how God has a plan to redeem his creation, but I forget that restoring what is broken means extracting what is evil or shameful or broken in us. And I can't cradle it to my chest and turn from God. I need to turn to him and trust him. That is what repentance is all about, turning from sin and turning to Jesus because he alone has the power to heal us, to save us.
In case you were wondering how the splinter story ends... Charlie's dad came home and took the splinters out because after all, good fathers take care of things like that.
"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6
"Repent then, and turn to God, so that your sins will be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord." Acts 3:19
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