confession – good for the soul, hard on the fingernails

I slipped this week.

I was researching a blog topic, and followed a link that came back from a search…and I was reading some material that is outside the lines. This dovetails neatly into a discussion we were having at my group a couple of weeks back; the issue was how we should avoid sin and where sin starts.

When I first clicked to the page, it took a minute for me to realize where I was. No, really, stop laughing. There are places in my blog that sound very similar to what I was reading there, at first. Then I realized, this guy isn’t confessing for the sake of illustration or as an apology – he was quite proud of his stories.

That’s the point where I needed to steer away. But I didn’t. I bookmarked the page. And I returned to it, a couple of times.

Here comes the comic relief. We were up late Friday night, and I stayed on the couch after my wife went upstairs. I clicked on the link, and decided I was thirsty, so I went to get a drink from the kitchen.

I heard my wife’s footsteps on the stairs as I turned off the faucet. Too late, she was downstairs. Maybe she’d come to the kitchen.

No such luck. She was warm, so she went to the living room to adjust the thermostat.

My laptop was about three feet away, facing the thermostat.

I walked in briskly, and tried to position myself between her and the computer. She was fairly tired, so I don’t know if she sensed my panic. The air wasn’t kicking in; would I take a look? I leaned over her shoulder, she stepped to the side, and the next thing I knew she was standing there staring at the computer.

My bride is not blessed with tremendous eyesight, and that may be the only reason I have unbroken fingers and a laptop today.

I’m not sure what she saw. She said nothing, and didn’t react visibly. We were both so tired, I decided to see if she said anything about it. She didn’t. I had to get out early Saturday morning, and we didn’t have any time to talk until that afternoon. It was a very long morning, and I gave a lot of thought to just waiting to see if she would bring anything up – but I know better. It was my slip, my transgression; the ball was in my court, whether she even realized what had happened or not.

I chose the better option. When we had some time with the kids out of earshot, I told her what had happened and asked her forgiveness.

I didn’t enjoy the talk that followed.

But my heart is lighter, and I was able to worship this morning, not weighed down by the guilt of a sin covered in secrecy.

There are several directions I could go with this. For now, I’ll just say that I am still convinced that being real with my spouse is much more important than us having “peace” (peace being defined as blissful ignorance, in this case). I am reminded that I’m still a struggler, and that I am still vulnerable (and probably always will be). Finally, I am relieved that I can look at what I did with a touch of disgust and shame, but mostly with a sense of remorse; in the past, it probably would have been more a sense of resignation and defeat.