That's A Violation

 For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Romans 3:22b-24

I believe for the most part I do my job well. Sure there are days when I'm a little grumpier and less patient, but we all have good days and we all have bad days. I know I'm not perfect, but who is?

Since I care for children, licensing has to come in and does inspections. That's perfectly fine with me after all I want to do the best I can and keep the children in my care as safe as I can, so why not be accountable.  For years this has gone well, sure there are things the inspector points out and I do my best to do a better job. Problem is now, I have inspector who is a bit over the top.

One thing to keep in mind, I have a home day care. Which means I actually live in the home where I have my day care. There are other people who live here as well my husband and my daughter. We also have pets: a dog, two cats, and around forty fish. This is our home. At one time I could have become a part of the head start program, it meant a guaranteed salary. The problem was wherever the place was where the kids would be could not be entered or gone through when children weren't present. This would have been totally impossible, so I chose not to take part. We enjoy our home.

I enjoy having a day care in my home and love each of the families that have been a part of my family life. At one time I thought of the kids as nephews and nieces and now I am beginning to think of them as grandkids, they each have a place in my heart and I remember each of them.

Anyway when this newer inspector comes in and she likes to say "That's a violation." She domineers over me and tends to look down on me. It is a very stressful time when she's here. I try very hard to make sure everything is in order and if something isn't quite up to par I will give her a heads up. 

This last time was the backyard wasn't cleaned up yet after the dog, it is done before the children head out. I informed her and her response is "That's a violation." Then she informs me it needs done before children arrive, so apparently before the sun is up I need to clean up the backyard. Not a good idea to do in the dark. Very stressful.

This though has me thinking how grateful I am that God doesn't yell "THAT'S A VIOLATION!" every single time I sin. Just imagine it, I begin to get angry and speak out in anger, "THAT'S A VIOLATION!". I might want to tell a lie, "THAT'S A VIOLATION."

It would stop a lot of us from making the wrong choices, but just think how stressed we would be. God wouldn't be showing us any grace. You know God's Riches at Christ's Expense. We all deserve punishment, but God gives us grace. We are made clean because of what Jesus did at the cross. He took on all of our violations so that we can be forgiven.

Somehow, someway I hope that each of us can know that not one of us is perfect. We all have violations like it or not.

Now to show grace to this inspector and hopefully one day she can find God's grace, so she can show grace to others.