Potty training and the empty tomb

This isn't my first potty rodeo.


You'd think that by the 4th kid I'd know what I'm doing.


I think the necessity of turning off part of your brain so you can survive the cleaning up of bodily excrement renders you unable to remember how you finally succeeded in getting it to end up in the proper place.


When you feel successful because your kid sat on the potty for 15 minutes, but then pees in a shoebox 30 seconds later; or when your kid pees on the floor and then drags the potty over to put on top of the pee; or when your 20-pound toddler suddenly has the strength of Hercules when you try to place him on the potty against his will, you start to believe that this is the way it ever shall be.


Chilling images of your child going off to college in pull-ups start creeping into your mind.


We humans have such myopic perspective, don't we?  The present moment is all we can see.  Even the past gets blurry--and the future is completely invisible.


{Case in point:  my memory of potty training my older three children is spotty.  I am a proponent of the naked method (thus the dearth of photos in this post), and I know I employed it with a certain one of my other children, who provided me with a rather spectacular memory that (for better or for worse) has not been erased.  Said child was standing naked in the kitchen when it became apparent that there was an impending bowel movement.  I whisked up the very small child under the arms and rushed toward the bathroom; alas, too late, because as I swung the child around the corner, legs splayed out, the centrifugal force of the swing caused the poor child's poop to go flying out like a discus...landing on the very floor I was trying to spare.}


Ahem.


Where was I?


So maybe our life will meander along pretty close to how we imagine it.  Or maybe life will turn a sudden sharp corner, never to be the same.


A Christian's faith is based on these surprise twists, isn't it?


For the most part, Jesus' followers hoped that Him being the Messiah meant an imminent, glorious throw-off of their Roman oppressors.  He had made the blind see, the lame leap, the hungry crowds fed--what expectation must they have had when the conflict between Him and His critics came to a head!  Now their belief would be vindicated!


How many of them thought, Any minute now! during Jesus' arrest, mock trial, and crucifixion?


Yet He died.


No legions of saving angels, no overthrown Rome, no glory.  The One they hoped in was dead.


Now the disappointed crowds started to return to life as it was before.  Not our Messiah after all.


Then came the greatest twist in history.  Surprise!  The tomb is empty!  The death wrappings are discarded!  The One who would forego a spectacle to save His Son from death has worked a far better miracle by raising Him from death!


So if nothing else, should not Easter remind me that unseen twists are possible, and despite appearances, my child may yet potty train?


Should not Easter remind me that I am no longer under condemnation?  "If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you."  (Romans 8:11)


And should Easter not remind us all that God has warned us of another unseen twist coming?  "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God... the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.  While they are saying, 'Peace and safety!' then destruction will come upon them suddenly."  (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 5:2-3)


History is replete with unexpected surprises.  May God give us faith to expect the twists He has promised.



"Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?"   -1 Corinthians 15:54-55