I could see Ray sliding by out of the corner of my eye. That she was guilty of something was clear as day. What exactly, I was less sure of. We were in the middle of quiet time and I couldn’t imagine what she was trying to keep from me. She crab-walked towards the kitchenette, staring straight at me the whole time proceeding slowly as if to be invisible. She wasn’t invisible and she was obviously hiding something behind her back.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, nothing. Throwing something away.”

“Oh? What needs to be thrown away?”

“Just a thing. That’s trash. And needs to be thrown away.”

Throughout this short conversation her movement was ever towards the trash can. Of course I had her show me what was in her hand. Of course I was dismayed. Of course it was a ball of brown hair. I had left her partially unattended with a pair of plastic scissors, cutting away at her school worksheet. She’s an excellent cutter and loves doing it. She’ll cut for an hour straight hardly changing positions. I often let her chop away next to me amassing a sizeable confetti collection during quiet time to keep her occupied. This time I was absorbed in work and didn’t notice when she got bored. Didn’t notice when her four-year-old mind told her four-year-old hands to cut her four-year-old hair.

Many times prior to this incident we discussed what she could and couldn’t cut. She knew the rules, and through her tears communicated quite well that she had no idea why she had done it. I believed her. She just did it.

Perhaps on another day I would be more exacting. Did I talk through obedience, honesty, and trust? Yes, I did. Did she face consequences for her decision? Yes, she did. But none of it came with the same fervor of righteousness I sometimes yield when talking of sin to the girls. She’s four. She fully acted like a four-year-old and I did not fully act like the parent of a four-year-old wielding small scissors. More than that, the utter confusion she was externally wrestling with trying to figure out the “why” hit me. She had no idea what possessed her to do it, just as I retroactively have no idea why I sometimes make poor decisions to allow a sin to dominate in my own life. I regret it, I ask for forgiveness, I try to change, but then I do it again.

It is so easy to forget our own darkness. To forget that as we go through sanctification, we’re actually spiritual four-year-olds walking through life with a pair of plastic scissors knowing the rules, knowing the consequences, and still choosing to cut our hair. Our Father is judicious, but full of mercy, and in that moment I desperately wanted to be that for Ray because He is that for me.

Her haircut is barely noticeable. A stray chunk falls out of her ponytail and her bangs are a bit wonky, but that’s the worst of it. Several stuffed animals were included in the salon day, but none all that worse for the wear. This event has spurred me on to be a better parent. A parent who allows their child to make mistakes, to learn from those mistakes by enduring the consequences, to love them through, and to pray each moment draws them closer to a recognition of their own need for the blood of Christ.

Why? Why did you do it???

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

Romans 7:18-20

HOWEVER….

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20