Cupcake Blues

My children, sad to say, are going through what I hope is just a season of lying, sneaking, and stealing. No parent wants to discover this, yet somehow I must find a way to consider all joy!It is difficult to not feel like a complete failure as a parent when I have been charged by God with their moral and spiritual training.

Sadly this time it took the form of sneaking Easter candy and even frozen Gigi's cupcakes from the garage freezer before dinner. For those unfamiliar with Gigi's cupcakes, they are not ordinary cupcakes, not in any way. They are cupcakes on steroids, huge in size with equally huge mounds of super sweet butter cream frosting piled on top. I myself can only eat approximately 1/4 in one sitting and I love cupcakes! They were left over from Kristen's wedding which makes it doubly sad since they had to be trashed to make a point.

By God's providence, the culprits were discovered by their older sister who happened to to be looking out the window as they were hastily trying to consume them outside in the culdesac. Fortunately, they are still not great at hiding the evidence. I see this as precious time to pray for the conviction of the Holy Spirit to kick in as I will not always be around. I began with the spiritual implications of sneaking, etc. which brought no contriteness whatsoever. It wasn't until the brand new box of ice cream sandwiches along with any other sweet treat I could find went into the garbage that produced weeping and gnashing of teeth from one and a very long sad face from the other. This escalated into a full blown fit which brought Daddy onto the scene which is never good, So much angst was displayed that it honestly reminded me of when Esau traded his blessing for a bowl of soup in Genesis.  I'm starting to see the signs of a serious sugar addiction that must be addressed. This of course is just an aside to the more serious sneaking issue.

The discovery again of the sinfulness of my children while disappointing and discouraging, should not be surprising. God's word speaks of our sinfulness a lot. Sin is not pretty and it looks different for everyone of us. Yet, God still hates it and we should hate it too. Our only hope is to pray for God's grace every single day. I pray that my children would hate sin and love God and his word, that they would desire to do what is right in His eyes. In the meantime, it's fruit for dessert.