It's for Your Good

Every evening, I place two small disposable pads, lavender lotion, eczema cream, lip balm, diaper cream, diaper, an adorable mitten cuffed sleeper, and a strange and gross Swedish invention dubbed “The Snot Sucker” on the twin bed in my son’s nursery. It’s part of our bath time preparation routine.

After his time in the Fisher Price Puppy Tub is complete, he’s placed on a soft, plush sunflower mat and quickly burritoed in a warm towel straight from the dryer.

My son seems to enjoy bath time, but last night he was slightly fussy when I placed him on the disposable pads, still wrapped tightly in his towel. Even the lotion massage that I personally would enjoy didn’t seem to soothe him.

My husband, hearing all the fuss, rushed in to see what it was all about. After giving him a brief run down, while my son was still red faced, my husband reaches for what I once thought I couldn’t and wouldn’t purchase, let alone actually use on my child-the NoseFrida “Snot Sucker”.

What ensued could be referred to as “ripping off the bandaid.” The strange contraption was placed gently in my son’s nostrils, while attached to a tube with a mouthpiece at the end. My husband began to “suck” from the mouthpiece and I’ll spare you the details of what ended up in that Crayon shaped tube.

By this time, my son’s face is a purplish red color and crocodile tears are beginning to pool, while my husband and I try to console him. My husband gently said, “It’s for your good, Bubba.”

Those words gripped me and I thought, “isn’t that just like sanctification and transformation?”

Sanctification and transformation in the Christian life are sometimes painful and uncomfortable, just like the “snotsucking” experience for my son. However, it’s for our good. Without this treatment, my infant son may not be able to breathe clearly. Phlegm could settle in his little lungs, creating a dangerous situation. Although the treatment may be uncomfortable for him, it’s brief, and for his good.

I couldn’t help but think of Jacob wrestling with God on a dark, lonely night. He left that match maimed-crippled for the rest of his life AND his name changed.

I also considered Saul-who we mostly know as Paul-blinded by the bright light on that road to Damascus, also forever changed.

Both these men experienced an uncomfortable transformation that eventually led to sanctification. Jacob, once a trickster and deceiver, became Israel and fathered God’s people. Paul, once a persecutor, became one of the strongest preachers and proclaimers of the faith.

I reflected on how our transformation and sanctification makes God feel. Like my husband and I who tried our best to console our son, who doesn’t understand the need of “snotsucking,” God knows our sanctification is for our good, even when it may be uncomfortable and/or painful for us and sometimes we might not understand His “methods”.

The Skit Guys have a sketch where Tommy Woodard portrays God, while Eddie James acts as a Christian. Tommy’s God character has an invisible chisel and as Eddie prays asking God to change him to be more like Him, Tommy’s God character begins to hammer and chisel away at Eddie. I remember Eddie telling Tommy’s God character that it was painful. That dramatization stuck with me since high school camp when I originally witnessed it. It used to make me afraid of spiritual growth and change, because I knew it might be painful.

However, last night, God reminded me that although sanctification is sometimes uncomfortable or even painful for us, it is for our good. Like my son after snotsucking, we can “breathe in the world better,”-seeing ourselves and the world more clearly as we are sanctified and transformed more closely into the image of Jesus our Savior and Lord.

May I be open to uncomfortable sanctification, trusting God to transform me more into His image.