Poopy Pants

If you are a parent, you have had the joy (or sorrow) of living through potty training. As a daycare provider, I have endured this ritual not only with my own children, but with countless others as well. My son, who is now six, took longer than his sister to accomplish the task of bladder and bowel control, but did do it within the prescribed amount of time so it wasn't necessary to seek professional help. He was very proud of himself once he was a 'big boy'.

Imagine my .... shock ... one day when I was outside doing yard work, when I heard his voice coming from the front stoop. I turned to find my 3 year old in full splendor. There he stood, pants around his ankles, mess down his legs and a huge wad of poopy toilet paper clutched in his hand. His face told me that he was not pleased about his current condition either. He loudly declared (for all the neighborhood to hear), "Mom, I know I'm a big boy and I don't poop in my pants anymore, but I just did!"

His heart was broken. I knew he must have had one of those fast moving attacks that caught him and his new skill of control off guard, but in his eyes, he had failed. He had let me down. He had let himself down. Of course, being 3, he was unaware that the public declaration and display should have heightened his shame.

As I went to rescue him from his prison of poop, I was puzzled as to how he made it past his father, who was sitting right on the couch and must have witnessed his pants- shackled ankles and smelly journey to the front door. I coaxed him back inside, and said to John, "Um- your son is having....issues." This has become our unofficial family term for diarrhea....ISSUES. We no longer have fast-running poop (as earlier declared by a daycare client), but we have ISSUES. Sawyer, in all of his wide eyed innocence looked skyward at his father and said, "Daddy, I'm having issues."

How often have I felt like this with God? Even though I know about sin and how to avoid it, there are still days when I'm blindsided by temptation and I fall. I fail. I disappoint God. I disappoint myself. I make a mess of things and cry out to God to help me clean it up. I stand at His feet, look toward heaven and say, "Daddy, I'm having issues." He does the same thing for me that John did for Sawyer. He delicately picks me up. He carries me to the bathroom and washes all my issues down the drain....never to be heard from again! Then He wraps me in a big, cozy towel, holds me tight and loves me just the same.