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Today, we are jumping right in headfirst with a confession. I make mistakes. Perhaps you relate to that. As a mom, have you ever made a mistake that went something like this? Your kids wanted something or wanted to do something and your gut said, “say no, say no.” And then after your child relentlessly, continuously, asks and asks and asks you about that same thing over and over again, you give in and then you later realize that you made a giant terrible mistake. And then you completely regret allowing that thing to happen or that thing being allowed to come into your child’s life. Sound familiar?
The Mistake of saying Yes to Show and Tell
Oh my gosh, this one time I made a mistake and it involved our family cat, believe it or not. My youngest child was in public school at the time and it was his turn for show and tell. He wanted to bring his cat to show and tell at the public school. Now you would think this would be no big deal, not a problem. But the thing is that we live out in the country in the middle of nowhere on a farm and our cats, though tame and friendly, they’re definitely not indoor cats. They’re not house cats. And they are not used to being transported in containers. They don’t have collars, leashes, anything along those lines. So the problem was that he wanted to bring his cat to the school to show the kids and everything in me was like, I just don’t think this is a good idea. But as parents, we all too often just want to give our kids everything they want. We want to make them happy and sometimes that clouds our judgment. And when we should say no to something, here we are… we find ourselves saying yes. And so I said yes, we’ll make it happen. We’ll get the cat to the school. We’ll bring it for show and tell, it’ll be great because the cat really is a wonderful cat. We love the cat to pieces, it was just the method of delivery and everything that ensued that went terribly wrong.
So the day of show and tell, I knew it was not going to go well when I tried to load this giant cat and I mean, it is a very large tiger-striped cat. This thing almost looks like a small bobcat, he’s very, very large. So I have this little pet carrier that I had previously used to transport my little Yorkie who was three and a half pounds. Well this cat is like, I don’t know, somewhere between 12 and 20 pounds, I’m not exactly sure. So I knew things were going to go terribly wrong when I began to try to load this cat into this little bitty pet carrier and the cat was just freaking out at me. He was completely freaking out. And so somehow I finally miraculously managed to actually stuff the cat into the pet carrier, and I don’t know if you’ve seen those cartoons from back in the day like the Tasmanian devil gets locked into a box and the thing is just like freaking out and there are claws coming out the side and he’s bouncing off the walls inside of this pet carrier. Well, finally he calms down and I’m feeling like really mixed feelings and I’m feeling honestly bad about the whole thing. Because I’m like, I should have said, no. The cat is mad, I don’t know how this is going to go down. I think this might be a mistake.
Well, I load up the cat, I get to the school and prior to stuffing him into the box, I had put this collar and harness leash thing on him, stupidly thinking that somehow it was going to calm him down and corral him and we were going to be able to show him just like a pet house cat, right? Walk him around the kids and it was going to be great. So another layer to the many problems was that this was the year after COVID. And everybody was back in school, but they were not allowing parents or show and tells to happen in the classroom. So we were to bring the cat directly out to the playground and meet the kids out on the playground. So here I am with the cat in the box and my husband was with me. And I look through the glass door and I see the class walking down the hall coming toward us to come out to the playground and so I tell Chad that we need to get the cat out of the box. So we opened the door and the cat immediately freaks out and he starts jumping and Chad at this point is getting scratched to pieces. Ironically, the cat’s name is Scratchy, though typically he does not scratch… typically he’s a very friendly cat. But he was terrified and he was not having any of this wild adventure that we had him on.
And so Chad has this harness thing on him and the cat is freaking out, scratching everywhere. He tries to clip this leash onto the collar and Scratchy is just freaking out and going crazy, going completely wild. Well, he wiggles out of the harness. And just as my little guy and his class get out to the playground, Scratchy gets loose, completely bolts, jumps over the playground fence and into the neighboring woods, much to the horror of myself and the entire first grade class.
Long story short, Scratchy was lost in the woods for the following two days. I stayed up that entire night crying and praying and feeling terrible, and knowing that I had made a mistake. And I was just asking God to miraculously somehow bring this darn cat home. And so the next day, the kids went to school and Chad and I were outside the school the entire day calling and looking for the cat. We thought we spotted him once and I don’t know whether we did or not. If we did, he didn’t want anything to do with us terrible people who had stuffed him into a box and brought him to this strange place. So school ended, we took the kids home, everybody was very disappointed and crying and upset and believe it or not, the next day my mom, bless her heart, goes to the school, she’s walking through the woods, and it was like within minutes she had located Scratchy. She called him in her soft, gentle voice and he came straight to her and she brings him home.
Pencil Mistakes to Ink Mess-takes
Oh my gosh, that was a mistake, because I should have said no. But the thing is that sometimes things like that actually end up as a fairly small mistake. Maybe it seems big at the time, but you look back on them and you can laugh and they really end up as fairly small mistakes with outcomes that aren’t so terribly bad, right? And all is well in the end and you really can just look back and laugh at those things. I relate those little mistakes like that, that turn out okay in the end to writing something in pencil and then erasing it. It’s like you make a mistake in pencil, you erase it, and the paper is fairly clean and all is fairly well, right? Oftentimes, very little remnants of that mistake remain. But other times, things don’t turn out so well and they can become even bigger deals than this scenario I just described for you. And it can feel like things turn into more of a mess-stake than a mistake. A mess-stake is bigger than a mistake. It’s lasting, and it’s big. So I compare a mess-take to writing on paper with an ink pen and trying to erase it with an eraser. But all that actually happens is that the ink smears all over and the paper rips. And that’s what you end up with. You try to patch it back together with tape, but the paper is still marked on and smeared, messy and torn. And sometimes hearts get hurt badly. And oftentimes, tears fall when there is a mess-take. And oftentimes, with those giant mess-takes come a lot of that dreaded mom guilt and really feeling like a failure.
So a while back, I really did make a giant mess-take that was so much bigger and worse than the mistake I made with the family cat. And I honestly felt like the biggest failure of a mom that ever was as this situation unfolded. I don’t want to go into major detail with the whole situation so I just want to give you the short version today. What happened was our family had become aware of an opportunity by another family and I really thought that what we were in for with this opportunity was going to be really a fun and wholesome, long-lasting family adventure that was just going to make our hearts full and it was going to be good in every way. We were going to be helping with the situation where help was needed, and we just really, us as well as the other families and people involved, we thought it was going to be a really good thing, we really truly did. So we got into this new adventure and a very short time into it, I could tell that we had made the wrong choice… that perhaps we hadn’t completely thought this thing through. We hadn’t been totally walking in wisdom as we made the decision to be part of this opportunity and it just really got messy. Like I said, everybody involved had stepped into the adventure with really good intentions, I really do truly believe that but it just as quickly turned messy and dang it, it ended up with people getting actually physically hurt as well as emotionally hurt and it left me staying awake at night for many nights and praying a lot and thinking through the situation that happened.
My husband and I ended up having to make decisions about this that were so stinking hard. And you know, it’s like hindsight is 2020. And, man, you look back with so much clarity like, dang it, we are not walking in wisdom, we had not thought this thing through. And like I said, I cried, my whole family cried multiple times. And I did, I spent so many nights laying awake, just talking to God about how much of a mess everything had turned into. And for a good amount of time, it really was a giant mess. I mean, even today, I still think back on this situation and kind of get this little just twinge in my gut like, dang it, we really should have thought that through more. And people very close to me got physically and emotionally hurt as a result of this giant mess.
God Stays the Same
But God, He has this way of taking our smeared, torn, patched-up mess, and turning it into something beautiful, doesn’t He? And that’s what He did with my mess-take. He brought healing, and He brought peace. And He’s still today bringing healing and still bringing peace around this situation as we continue to heal. And I believe that that is because He is the healer, and He is peace. God is the King of redemption and restoration. And He’s been especially speaking in my heart lately, and maybe this is a message for you today that He stays the same. Things around us change, seasons change, situations change. Man, there’s so much change happening around me today. Not to go deeply into this but, I look at a lot of my friends and friend groups from just across the country, and so many couples my age right now are going through divorce and going through major life changes. And dang, it has been just heartbreaking and hard to watch that. But I’m forever reminded as things change around us that God stays the same, right? Situations change, we make mistakes, people around us come and go but God, Yahweh stays the same. He’s the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Hebrews 13:6-8 says, “Therefore, we may boldly say: ‘The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’ Remember your leaders who have spoken God’s word to you, as you carefully observe the outcome of their lives, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Let me say that again. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”
Friend, no matter how this world changes around you, and no matter the mistakes or the mess-takes that you make, you can trust that God is consistent, and you can rest assured that He’s in the business of turning messes into messages. He’s a champion at using broken people as vessels for good.
Have you ever seen those little origami papers, or maybe you even folded them yourself? It seems like my kids are forever making those little origami creations, they take those little tiny pieces of paper and they fold them up, and they make these beautiful little tiny creations. It’s kind-of like that with God. He as the Creator takes our lives and our mess and He turns it into something new and good. Situations change, people can change, mistakes and mess-takes will come and go. But friend, your Creator stays the same. He’s bigger than your mess-takes. I find that so beautiful and reassuring. And that’s the heart of the message that I wanted to share with you today. It’s a message of hope, really. And I feel that in my own story. God just continues to bring healing and restoration and walks us into the future. And I know the good things that He has for our future. He’s already shown some of those redemptive things to me and it’s just incredible. It really is a message of hope.
And one last thing I want to speak to your heart today is that you can rest assured that you’re not alone in making those mess-takes, friend. Even with the best intentions, every single one of us will fall short sometimes. We’ll say yes when we should say no. We’ll give in, we’ll make the wrong choice. But deep in my heart, and I hope in yours too, we know that those shortcomings and failures and mistakes… that they are growth opportunities and there’s purpose in those. They’re meant to point us back to our Abba Daddy. He’s consistent. He is the healer. He is the Redeemer, the one who can restore and He has so much mercy, grace and love for you and for me. Amen.
