Coming Clean

If you read the quotes below, I’m stealing some of the thunder of this post. But if you don’t trust me, read the quotes before clicking through. They are for me the highlight, though they lose some of the authenticity without the backdrop.

The wonder, it seems to me after just thirty-odd years of living, is that there is any hope for change, that nature and grace may so conspire as to lift a man out of the ruts he has dug for himself. … Just ground reclaimed, gradually and painfully, from the unsleeping enemy.

…

As the last bit of daylight drained away into cloudy darkness, Alexander and I arrived at the question of what keeps a man holding on, what makes belief possible in the face of everything that argues against it. … I gave him my own answer – that the holy people I have known had a love for something real, that they could not have loved an illusion the way they loved God.

…

I must keep the faith. If I lose the faith – if I can no longer even say with the centurion, “I believe, help my unbelief!” – then it will all be to me waste and horror. It’s not that this world doesn’t matter to me, or wouldn’t – if anything, it matters too much. But if God isn’t behind things, if love doesn’t undergird the world, then I will lose heart.

Loose re-tellings of events of the day

Lisa: Josh, did you just do <something bad>?
Josh: … I don’t know …
Lisa: <stern look>
Josh: … yeah …

Ten minutes later

Me: Josh cut that out, you’re going to hurt yourself.
Josh: <continues crazy go nuts>
Me: <fends from crazy go nuts>
Josh: <wounds self amidst crazy go nuts>
Josh: <crying , screaming, gnashing of teeth>
Lisa: What’s going on in here?
Josh: <to Lisa:> It’s Daddy’s fault, he didn’t make me stop.
Me: <to Lisa:> The Daddy whom you gave me – he told me to stop, but he did not make me stop.
Josh: That’s not fair!
Parents: <shared , knowing smiles>

Clearly, he is starting to grasp the consequences of his actions … and already actively looking to dodge accountability … ah, stench of sin, how we know you all too well.