Shoveling Induced Thoughts

Well it's a snow day here for most schools in the Chicago area. Normally I'd be excited, but I had a meeting I wanted to get over with today...and now it's postponed. Boo! So like the good wife I am try to be, I went out to shovel the heaps of snow that covered my driveway before Dan gets home from work. Ok, maybe heaps is exaggerating a bit- it's about 6 inches. So as I was shoveling and starting to feel bitter that we don't own a snow blower, I figured I'd take the opportunity to pray and think. Prayers= good. Thinking= well...that could go either way.

As I was thinking, I began reflecting on sin. Real uplifting right? I was thinking that all this snow is like sin. Our venial sins are the fluffy snow. At first, it may be a light dusting. Over time those sins continue to build up and bring us down, weakening us to the temptation of more serious sins and turning away from God. The dirty, heavy, sludgy snow is our mortal sins. It truly weighs us down when we choose to turn away from God through mortal sin.

When we go to confession, a beautiful thing happens. We confess our sins and tell God that we are sorry and that we intend to turn away from sin. When we walk in that confessional, we are handing God the shovel. And he wipes it all away. He sweeps away those little habitual sins, our fluffy snow. And he brings out the snow plow to push away our mortal sins, that heavy sludgy snow. And like the snow continues to fall today, we will likely sin again. So, we'll just have to keep handing God that shovel at confession.

Dan and I had an interesting talk over the weekend about this topic, sin and confession. We had been on a retreat that was a whole lot of fluff. We kept hearing people say that it's impossible to be perfect and that our loving God understands that. And yes, that is true. But shouldn't we try? Shouldn't we strive to be saints? Why settle for mediocrity? Just a thought. When we do fall down though, we have one of the most incredible gifts- confession.

I have really grown to understand the beauty, power, and importance of confession over the past few years. When it snows, would you turn away someone's offer to help you shovel? Why turn away God's incredible mercy through the sacrament of Reconciliation? If we hand God the shovel, he'll help us do the heavy lifting.