a shout out to all you sinners

I did it again yesterday.  The exact same bad I always do.  That one thing I tell myself, This is the last time.  I will never, ever, ever do this again.  But I did. 

I make another apology for thoughtless words sent via technology, but the damage is done. 

My husband hugs me in the kitchen and tells me it’s going to be okay.  Tells me if I wake up feeling sinful-yucky in the night to snuggle up close and know he loves me.  But even all that manly goodness can’t wash the pain of sin from my heart. 

I’m sinful and weak, I tell him. 

We all are, he says.  We all are. 

I trudge up the stairs to call it a night, but first I fall to my knees by the bed.   O God. 

“What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?”  (Romans 7:24)  Paul’s words.  My words.   

I reach for my old Bible, gifted to me in 1988, to find this verse.  To find comfort.   

When I open to the verse the page falls out. 

Then I remember, Oh yes, that’s right.  I’ve been here before.  Struggling to control the sins that plague me.   

“What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God –through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  (Romans 7:24-25  NIV)   

I read the words again, tuck them back in the Bible, and crawl into bed clutching the Bible like a little girl snuggles a doll.   

Thanks be to God –through Jesus.  Jesus took this sin of mine upon himself and paid the price for it.

Do you feel like I do?  Asking, How am I here again?  Struggling with sin?  Listen, wear out Romans 7-8.  Flip to those chapters often, every time you’ve blown it.  Finger those pages until they fall out of your Bible, because those pages have the rescue on them.  The thanks be to God –through Jesus Christ.  You’re not alone, my friend.  We all need those falling-out pages.