- As my three year old grows up she is becoming more and more independent in everyday life. One such area is using the bathroom, but especially #2. I know, too much information, perhaps unspeakable, right? Well, that’s certainly how she feels about it too. It’s actually the only time she is insistent on being alone. She requires the door to be closed, and total privacy to reign. It’s almost unfair really, since she doesn’t think this is an instance in which I personally should be alone, but I suppose like most children she just assumes I want her company at all times. Today she made an odd request. She asked me to come with her. She still wanted to close the door, and be alone for “her business,” but she wanted me to sit directly outside the bathroom door and wait on her. She reasoned, “That way when I’m finished I can tell you and you can come wipe me.” Lucky me, right? I obliged, and at one point she called through the closed door, “Are you still there?”
- As odd as it may sound I think this bathroom boundary issue parallels our selfish relationships with Christ. Hang with me gang…
I can recall when I realized my first marriage was ending, the feeling in my throat like it was burning with fire, the pain in my chest as I realized a broken heart really feels as if your physical heart is shattering into a million pieces. What do you think I did in this moment of absolute turmoil and pain? I’ll tell you, I cried out to God. It was a natural response for a child of God, and is only surprising if you looked at my life at the time. I had sufficiently placed a door between my Savior and myself. I took my Lord and I placed Him in a box on the shelf. I took Him out on Sundays when we drug ourselves to eleven o’clock mass. I did not take Him out the night before lest He disapprove of the strip club we attended. I got Him out during difficult obstacles or tragedies in life like 911 and my grandma’s death. I asked for His help when I needed something. Lord give me recall and calm my nerves for this Nursing final. When things were good and I didn’t need His strength, well I put Him back in the box, and I went to the bar. It was easier that way, easier to push Him out of my life when I knew He might not approve. - I think we do this more than we want to admit. We don’t want God to see the undesirable, the ugly in us, so we put Him outside the door. We still want Him close though, in case we need something, need His help for something we know we’re incapable of providing for ourselves, but until that time we keep Him at a distance. It seems rather silly when I give the example of a preschooler, doesn’t it? But that is how ridiculous we can be, like children, self-absorbed, and clueless to the absurdity of our actions. When we push God out, and put up a wall, trying in vain to keep Him from seeing our worst, it’s pointless. Just because we shut the door doesn’t mean He’s unaware of what we’re doing in there. He sees our absolute, most foul, but loves us anyway. Why would you ever wish to separate yourself from such an unconditional love as that? I finally came to realize that if I took God out of the box and invited Him into my entire life, there was less ugly in me after all. His light, His goodness, His love, it has a way of pushing the ugly away, of illuminating the dark, and transforming the nastiness into something beautiful. There is peace when He is present. Rather than calling out to Him, and trying to tear down the walls I’ve constructed, I would rather just reach out my hand and fall into His embrace.
That is all 🙂