{"id":2037,"date":"2014-05-20T02:30:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T02:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=2037"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:30","slug":"if-we-confess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=2037","title":{"rendered":"IF WE CONFESS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sweet and sacred moments with our littlest one tonight.\u00a0 Sarah, our seven year old,\u00a0came out of her bedroom a full half hour after we put her down for the night.\u00a0 She whined to Melissa, &#8220;I can&#8217;t get to sleep &#8230; and I REALLY need to sleep.&#8221;Having attended a funeral last week for a 36 year old father of a little girl not much older than Sarah, I have returned home determined to simply BE with my kids more than I have been in the past.\u00a0 None of us know how much time we have with our precious little ones.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140507_180719-4.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So even though I was in the middle of some computer work, I offered to climb into bed with her and tickle her back for a few minutes. (It&#8217;s something she has loved since she was a toddler &#8230; it would definitely not help ME fall asleep to have somebody tickle MY back, but it works for her.) It turns out her lack of sleep was the result of a guilty conscience.\u00a0 Mid-tickle she started to\u00a0cry and all of a sudden she was confessing &#8211; in halting, tearful breaths &#8211; to all sorts of recent lies she had told to her sister, her friend and her classmates.\u00a0 I quickly called Hannah into the room and Sarah confessed a lie to her &#8230; and was forgiven. Relieved, Sarah hopped out of bed to give her sister a hug. So precious!I prayed with Sarah for forgiveness and then we went out to the living room again to confess to her mother (and teacher!) some lies and naughty behavior at school.\u00a0 She was forgiven, hugged tightly,\u00a0and Melissa prayed over her too.Once again,\u00a0I carried Sarah down the hallway, crawled back into her\u00a0bed and began to tickle her back.\u00a0 Now with a clear conscience before God and man, within a couple of\u00a0minutes she was sound asleep.\u00a0 What a reminder to me of the importance of keeping our hearts unhardened by sin.And of the power of confession.AND of the potential ministry in my own household I miss out on when I am &#8220;too busy&#8221; to pay attention.Lord, forgive ME&#8230;<em>&#8220;If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.&#8221;\u00a0 1 John 1:9<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sweet and sacred moments with our littlest one tonight.\u00a0 Sarah, our seven year old,\u00a0came out of her bedroom a full half hour after we put her down for the night.\u00a0 She whined to Melissa, &#8220;I can&#8217;t get to sleep &#8230; and I REALLY need to sleep.&#8221;Having attended a funeral last week for a 36 year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2039,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions\/2039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}