It started with a beautiful seven-foot Scotch pine Christmas tree. The problem was its trunk-it was too big for our tiny tree stand. Then, after whittling it down, it was too short to reach the bottom of the stand.Barbara suggested I nail on an extension. So I attempted to drive two nails through a one-inch block of wood into the trunk. Simple plan, right? Wrong.
With a swift blow of the hammer, the first nail bent at a sharp angle as if it were being driven into a piece of petrified wood. When the second nail followed suit, I began to murmur under my breath that Christmas trees must be a pagan ritual after all.
Nail number three was a kissing cousin of the first two. Number four went flying into an azalea bush. That tree trunk could have been butter and I'm convinced number five would have bent-which it did. Do you believe in demon-possessed Christmas trees?
I threw the tree, flying needles and all, into the trunk of the car with the intent of taking this stupid, pagan, petrified thing back where I bought it. And then I looked at my horrified son, five-year-old Benjamin, who witnessed this display and probably thought that Christmas was about to be canceled. Just this once I should have taken W. C. Field's advice: "If at first you don't succeed, then quit! There's no use being a stupid fool about it!"
Nobody likes to fail, especially in front of a young child, but we can't avoid it. Just as the apostle Paul lamented, we want to do good, but we cannot always do it.
Real homes see a lot of failure. We might fool our friends and coworkers, but in the home there are only so many rugs to sweep things under, closets to hide things in and attic spaces to tuck away junk. What do you do when you blow it at home? Stuff it, or admit it and ask forgiveness for it?