Reflection on Sin as a Dad

 Being a dad has given me a new perspective on things. One of them is sin. Of course, I know sin is bad. I know sin is evil. I know the consequences of sin, even if I don't grasp the full effects of them. But being a dad, I've come to appreciate the ugliness of sin. I reflect on the joy of my son. He is constantly happy. His biggest emotional dips of the day are when he doesn't get his milk fast enough. Not a very tough life. I will sit him in my lap to read to him, and I get brief glimpses of how God views me. And then sin intrudes upon my joy, and this congruence sucks my joy away. I remember that at some time, perhaps in the not too distant future, my son will experience real sin. My glowing bundle of joy will have his lights turned out some day. Cloudy skies are on his horizon, and I can't do anything to stop it. It's just the fallen world we live in. And it's ugly. There's a kind of healthy hatred of sin one can have. A disappointment in one self, and some good well deserved guilt. Sin, in this consideration, is seen more as a defeat. An obstacle to be overcome with God's grace. In this sense, it's almost abstract. I can't see it's ugliness. But when I look at my son, and I see how he will suffer, I see vividly the ugliness. I can see my son crying because of a playground bully. Or because he got hit by a drunk driver. I can see him in a hospital writhing in pain because of radiation treatment. Any of these possibilities because of sin having entered the world. And it's ugly. Perhaps I didn't see it much before because I had always considered myself as so broken and hardly worth saving, and I was accustomed to my own sin. Hardened to my own sin. But now, with my beautiful innocent boy, with the stain of original sin washed away so early, the contrast is more apparent. So the ugliness is more apparent. This motivates me to be better. My son is already sanctifying me. I'm sure this is an experience all parents have. I'm just new to it.