A Yellow Day

Monday was quite a day, filled with lots and lots of drama! But for the sake of this entry I plan to focus on my precious first born... Melia. Oh how I longed and prayed for this child, and she is more beautiful than I can express. Gorgeous on the outside and equally as beautiful on the inside. She is a girl's girl, at the age of 6 she already knows how to bat those eyes and can turn on a "come hither" strut when she wants too! Scares the crap out of me quite frankly. The boys will be intoxicated by her for sure.

But Monday... well Monday was a "Yellow day". Melia is currently in the 1st grade, she loves school, mostly recess of course, but she also likes lunch and computers! This is the second year that Melia has had Mrs. Meeks for a teacher, and Melia delights in making Mrs. Meeks proud of her. But on this particular day, while Mrs. Meeks was out in the hall tending to something else, another teacher was brought in to watch over the class. Unfortunately, many of the students assumed that this new teacher would not share Mrs. Meeks' standard of behavior and by the time Mrs. Meeks returned to the class room several names had been written on the board, including... Melia's. At the end of the day, when it came time to color in their "behavior chart", Melia was shocked to find out that she had been given a "Yellow Day". A spot on her, perfect record.

After we dropped off the carpool kids, Melia burst into tears. She was devastated by her "yellow day"! At first, she spewed reasons why it was not her fault and that Olivia was responsible, she had made her talk and she was the one that deserved to be yellow. As the tears streamed down her face I tried to explain to her that at some point it was her choice to answer Olivia and that she would have to take responsibility for her part. That did not help, she collapsed against the backseat, buried her face in her hands and sobbed. In just a few minutes we were home and I was feeling much of Melia's pain, and I could see that this sweet little girl was following in the footsteps of her mom and was becoming a very accomplished perfectionist. I had to take this opportunity to try and show her some truths about her Savior that at 42, I was just starting to learn myself. With my arm wrapped around her shoulders, I grabbed my Bible and walked with her to find a comfy spot in her room. I turned to Romans 3:23 and had Melia read the first several words "For all have sinned..."

"Who has sinned?" I asked.

"Everyone?" she answered.

"Yes, Melia. All of us have sinned, every single one of us."

"But not Nicole! She's the quietest girl in school! She will never have a Yellow Day! she interrupted with a fresh batch of tears.

I just wanted to scope her up, hold her like I did when she was a baby and rock her pain away. I so understood what she was feeling. But instead I looked her in the eye and explained to her that we all have yellow days. Every single one of us and that is why we need a Savior, someone to wash them away and to make them just as if they never happened. I had Melia turn to another passage in John. John 14:15 "if you love me, you will obey what I have commanded", oh I wish you could type with "tone"! I grew up hearing this verse over and over again, I heard it like a teenager boy saying it in the backseat of car to a girl he was trying to get to do things she wasn't ready to do "if you love me... then you will do this and this" (can you hear it?) But now, at 42 years old I am finally starting to realize that's not how Jesus said it at all, he said like this... "Cija, if you LOVE me, just LOVE me... then you'll do my commands, that stuff will just happen... I just want you to LOVE me, focus on loving me not doing everything right and perfect. This is a concept of God's amazing love and grace that I am still trying to fully understand, but I so want my little girls to grow up knowing how much their Jesus loves them and how He longs for us to simply focus on loving Him.

Every night at dinner, we go around the table and talk about what kind of day we had. I thought this was be a good word picture for Melia to try and understand the work that Jesus did on the cross. "Melia, picture God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit sitting down for dinner tonight. God leans forward to take a bite of the delicious meal that been prepared and asks His Son, Jesus, "So, what kind of day did Melia have today?" Jesus reaches into his backpack and proudly holds up your calendar and says "She did great! Another Green Day!!". Melia stopped me "But mom He would be lying." "No sweetheart, that's just it! That's why Jesus died on the cross for you! So that He could wash away all of your yellow days and make them just as if they never happened!! His blood covers them up and washes them away!!"

Oh how He loves you and me...