On Confession

When I was a child, my parents made me take vitamins everyday and I hated them. These were not the Flintstone vitamins that looked or tasted like gummy bears. Our vitamins reminded me of solidified vomit.

I hated taking them and my approach to dealing with this problem was to hide them. The vitamins would be set out for me along with breakfast by my mother. They would sit in a little bowl of their own and waited for what never came. I had discovered that our table had little crevices and ledges underneath it. When my parents were not looking I would hide them under the table.

In my mind this was a “win win” situation. My mother saw an empty vitamin bowl and my taste buds were not tortured with the solid green snot. Everybody was happy. Except I did not get the benefit of taking the vitamins. My body was not nourished with the extra help it needs to stay healthy. Maybe this is why my hair started falling out in my mid twenties.

I have adopted this method of dealing with things I dislike into adulthood. If I drop food on my shirt during lunch at work, I will wear a jacket the rest of the day. When I do not exercise and my waistline increases in size, I buy bigger pants. If I get inpatient and frustrated with my wife, then I keep telling her how it was really her fault and I was only reacting to her.

I like to do this with my sin. When I do not confess sin, I am hiding it. I conceal it, not just from my friends and my family, but also from myself.

Confessing sin is difficult. First I have to be honest with myself. I have to uncover and realize that there are parts of me that I do not like. I want to know myself truly and to do this I have to stop lying about what is really inside of me. I have to look in the dark places and open the door to the closet and then accept that this is who I am. The only way we can change is if we understand who we are.

Once I understand who I am, then I can repent. I can turn away from my sin and turn towards God.

Eventually my family moved to a new house, and included in the furniture being moved was our table. When the table was picked up and turned on its side, all of the vitamins that I had been hiding for all of those years spilled out onto the floor forming a big pile of guilt. My secrecy became obvious to everyone and I was exposed as my true self in a dramatic way.