Put down the RED PEN & step away from my son...

Tonight Micah broke down crying when I got on to him for not following my directions during bedtime. He said "Mom everything in my life is a red X. I always make mistakes, I don't want to but I do and I get the red X." I said "What red X, I don't understand what you're talking about?" Micah said "Everytime I do my work I always do it wrong and my teacher writes a big X on it and tells me to do it again. I don't understand bulgarian and when she tells me in english it still sounds like bulgarian. I always get red X's on everything, she just says wrong and writes the X. On the bus no one wants to be my friend I guess because I'm just a big red X."

We talked for a long time and I told him that he is not the only kid in the world to have to deal with the awful red X. I told him that daddy and I both had a lot of red X's growing up and showed him my bulgarian homework that was filled with the ink of a red pen. When I looked at my bulgarian homework it was hard to see past the red ink of my mistakes and see the blue ink where I had written something perfectly. I understood how Micah must feel. The red ink is so much brighter and screams out the mistakes you made. Micah and I talked about how we are children of God and we are not people with a Red X. Our Jesus took all of those Red X's and he bled and died for our Red X's. When we follow God and put our faith in His sacrifice for our Red X's then God puts an eternal smiley face sticker on our heart and strips the Red pen from satan's hand. The Bible talks of how Jesus is our advocate, He will stand between us and satan the accuser and tell satan "Put down the RED PEN and step away from my child!" Praise God that we have such a wonderful Savior and Lord and no longer live in fear of the Red X because we are forever forgiven.
Tonight Micah and I made the "I Hate Red Pencil Club" and made up jokes about the red pencil, mostly about karate chopping it in half. =) Though I was sad that he had been struggling with marking up his self esteem with that red pencil it was so good to have talked about what his identity is in the Lord and how God sees him with a smiley face sticker and not a red X. My prayer for everyone who reads this blog is that first you have a saving faith in Jesus. You have repented of your Red X's and have asked Him to save you. The Bible assures you that satan is waiting with a red pen in his hand waiting to accuse you on the day you stand before God and you will be guilty before His holiness if you have chosen to live a life outside of His Son Jesus. Finally if you are a child of God I pray that you are not living your life allowing satan to threaten you with the Red X's of your past. The Bible says you are a new creation and if God holds no record of wrong against you then why would you choose to hold a record of your mistakes against yourself. Jesus took our Red X to the cross with Him and wrote on the top of our paper FORGIVEN...Mercy covers all.