Day 71: the Cleansing Act of Confession

The one who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy. Proverbs 28:13

I wasn’t what you’d describe as an actively disobedient kid. I mean if my parents specifically told me not to do something, I typically complied. However, if my parents neglected to forbid me to do something, well then it was fair game.

Like when they neglected to tell me that it wasn’t a good idea to leave a nice girl’s eighth grade slumber party in the middle of the night with a wild girl who thought she knew a shortcut to the McDonald’s that was twelve miles away by car. At the time it sounded logical—even compassionate—to traipse across town at two o’clock in the morning so as to bring back nourishment for our peers. Good night, if those survival reality television shows were popular in the late ’70s, we probably would’ve been lauded for our brave ingenuity instead of being firmly reprimanded by two policemen when we come limping back to the soiree around noon, many hours after our empty sleeping bags were discovered.

After enduring the emotive sobs and entreaties of said good girl (who felt very betrayed that we didn’t invite her to accompany us on the ill-fated adventure), the frosty disapproval of her parents, and a second, even harsher reprimand from my mom and stepdad on the way home, I decided it would be best not to disclose the nasty cut on the bottom of my right foot that was a result of stepping on a broken bottle while wearing flip flops on the trek.

When the cut began to throb that night, I held my foot over the bathtub, doused it with rubbing alcohol, then wrapped it in an Ace bandage and made a mental note to wear sturdier footwear if I ever went on another nighttime excursion. When it hurt too badly to stand on the next morning, I told mom I thought I was coming down with the flu—a white lie she swallowed whole after taking my temperature and finding it to be unusually high.

It wasn’t until later that day, when mom asked if there was anything I had omitted from the slumber-party-disappearance story that I confessed everything. Which is when she lifted up the sheet and saw the angry red streaks—signs of a serious infection—running up and down my leg. Naturally, she bundled me into the Buick and raced to the hospital. Which is where a white-headed doctor with protruding Albert-Einstein-ish eyebrows told me kindly but firmly, “This is going to hurt something awful, honey, but we don’t have time for you to get numb if we’re going to save your foot!” You can understand why I don’t remember much else after seeing the flash of his scalpel and watching Mom slump into a plastic chair to keep from fainting.

I knew from the moment I stepped on that broken bottle and it sliced my instep that it was a nasty cut, but I assumed it was nothing a little rubbing alcohol couldn’t cure. I was much more concerned about whether it would keep me from competing in the track meet our team had scheduled later that week. Or whether I would get grounded if Mom found out about the injury. And the concern that weighed most heavily on my adolescent mind was whether I’d end up losing phone privileges, which would surely render me a thirteen-year-old pariah. My life would never go on! It never occurred to me that sepsis could cause me to lose my foot or, as the doctor soberly told my mom afterwards, possibly even my life. Yet with just one act of confession, my foot was saved, the lines of communication were opened back up with my mom, and my life, did, in fact, go on!

• What seemingly minor unconfessed sins turned into serious injuries that caused you to limp for a season in your walk of faith?
• Can you remember any times in your life where God showed you the freeing and saving power of confession? How does it feel when you “open back up” the lines of communication with Him?
• Do you tend to confess right after a transgression now, or do you still tend to wait and hide it, hoping the wound will just heal itself?