Sin

Today I went to a restraunt with some friends of mine I hadn't seen in a long time. It was one of those restraunts with a BYOB polocy (bring your own beer). We were sitting there, and a man walked in carrying two six-packs of beer, and two little girls probably the age of 4 or 5. We ate our food, and he ate his. No one joined him except the two little girls. We finished, got up, and went outside. As we stood outside, chatting and catching up, we saw the same man walk out. He was holding the two little girls' hands, but had no beer with him this time. The two girls skipped and chirped happily to him-"Daddy, Daddy"-rambling like little children do. But what the young girls were completely unaware of was the fact that the man was so drunk, he could barely keep his eyes open. As my friends and I watched him, I wondered where his beer was. Then it hit me-he probably drank them all. And now he was getting in a car with those tiny girls? He was drunk, yet he was going to risk his daughters' lives behind that wheel? It made no sense to me. My Dad followed the man to his car, got his liscence plate enumber, and called 911 as the man was getting in his car. Meanwhile, the man turned around and took the girls into a Blockbuster down the street. Within minutes, police were there and talked to the man. As my friends and I wrapped up our evening together, said goodbye, and got in our car, my sister asked my mom. "Mom, why do people drink so much? Don't they know that if they drink so much, they'll be drunk?" My mom explained, saying "You see, that man was probably an alchoholic, and his mind is so messed up, that he's brainwashed himself into thinking he can 'hold his liquor'." I began thinking about those words. That man had convinced himself that he could drink 12 beers and not be affected by them. But he is effected by them. Not only is he affected by them, but he affects those little girls' lives too. I got to thinking about that. Isn't that how we are with sin? We think sin doesn't affect us, but it affects us and others around us. We think we can "hold our sin"-like that man thought he could "hold his liquor"-but we can't "hold our sin". It only turns around and hurts us. We think we can control it. But we can't. I know that, because I've been there. A while back, I had some hard times. And I turned to self-mutilation. I began cutting myself. I thought for awhile that I could control it. It started out as just something small. I would just cut myself a little bit, just when something big happened. Just a small cut to make myself feel better. I could control it-for a little while. Then it got to where I was not only doing it when I had a big problem, but I was doing it everyday. It got to where I felt like I had to do it. It became an addiction. And I thought it only affected me. But alot of people worried about me. My friends, my family-I made alot of people suffer because of what I chose to do to myself. We think like that alchoholic man did-we think we can "hold our sin" and control it. But we can't. It only comes back to shoot us in the foot. What if that guy had gotten in his car? What if the cops hadn't stopped him? You know what had probably happened-he would have probably gotten in that car, drove off, and gotten hurt. All because he thought he could "hold his liquor". He thought those 12 beers wouldn't affect him. But had he gotten in that car, they would've affected him and those two little girls. Those girls were innocent, but because of that man's sin, they could've died tonight. Their lives could've ended-all because that man thought he could control his beer. But he couldn't. Can't. Nobody can. We all think that we can let Sin slide into the backseat and we can still drive. But Sin always wants to become a backseat driver, and once it can be a backseat driver, it slides into the driver's seat and slowly takes control.