Lessons from Snot

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in my car waiting for my daughter Maggie to get out of school. I had already picked up her sisters, Anna and Rachel, who attend the school down the street. It was a nice day and they were playing outside while we waited. After a few minutes, Anna came up to say hi to me with a friend of hers. From my vantage point in the car, for better or worse, I had a clear view up Anna’s nose, and I could see one side was just waiting to drop a load of snot.

I gave her a tissue and told her to blow her nose before things got messy. She took the Kleenex and dabbed at her nose. This was apparently just enough contact so that when she pulled the tissue away there was now a thin line of snot from her nose to the tissue. Of course she and her friend thought this was hilarious…

“O, Anna! That is dis-gust-ing!” I exclaimed, laughing with them. “Wipe it again!” This time after she wiped it you could see a thick curl of the green stuff going from one nostril to the other. This made them laugh all the more.

I got a new tissue, held it up to Anna’s nose and told her to blow. She did. The resulting sound was amazing. As I tried to pinch her nose clean it became clear that there was still a lot more of the vile gunk in there. I got a new tissue. “Blow, again.” She did. I could feel her nose vibrating as the stuff ripped out of her nose filling up the tissue. It was revolting…my palm was getting damp. “Again! Harder!” She did. It took 3 more tissues to get everything cleaned out to my satisfaction.

“Thank you daddy,” she said, “I feel a lot better!” She sounded a lot better too.

So where am I blowing….er, I mean…going with this?

I am going to parable country…where father and daughter represent you and another, where snot represents sin, where the tissue represents grace, and the blowing of the nose represents the work confession, repentance, and the struggle to get the sin out of us.

Sometimes as a Christian (notice, I did not say pastor or elder or deacon, I said Christian, this is not a pastor’s responsibility) modeling God’s love grace to one another means being willing to be the person holding the Kleenex. This is not often a pleasant task. Hearing what people are struggling with, feeling their pain, and seeing their sin can wig you out like the feeling of a tissue breaking as a kid blows their nose into it.

But just as my love for my daughter made me willing to hold the tissue to her nose while she blew, we need to be loving enough with one another to administer grace in a hands on and up close kind of way, not backing away for fear we might get dirty and need to wash our hands. Remember, we are Jesus’ hands until He comes back, and that means we need to be willing to hold the Kleenex. That is one of the things hands do.