Confessing sins

Confession of sin was never really a big part of my prayer life. I mean, if I did something PARTICULARLY bad, I'd confess. Otherwise, it was mostly giving thanks and asking for stuff. I don't know if I think I'm hiding it from God by not acknowledging my sin, or if I'm just so calloused to my sin that I don't even acknowledge it to myself.

Anyway, the reason that I got started thinking about this is because Ellie confessed her sin to me today. She'd had a really fun day, having friends over and going to the pool. Then Paul got her ice cream since he was leaving today. Great day in Ellie's book. So at dinner I'm telling Peter about how Ellie was so good today and didn't whine or anything. We're praising her and applauding her when she looks at me and says, "I hit Hannah." "What? When?" I ask. "In the computer room," she responds. "Why did you hit Hannah?" I ask. "I go to the room... and Hannah in front... and" (she pats her knees repeatedly) "Hannah say no no no... and I hit Hannah."

I don't really know what happened, but something in her little conscience told her that she shouldn't get away with the praise we were giving her. Or maybe I'm giving her too much credit. The more likely situation is that she is VERY literal and knew it wasn't true when I said she'd been really good today. Either way, she confessed, and I made her call Hannah to apologize. I'm sure Hannah had no idea what was going on, but it was important to me that Ellie acknowledge her mistake and make efforts to fix it.

I don't think that I really realize the consequence of my own actions sometimes. Especially now that I'm at home, my days consist of chasing after and breastfeeding my children. That's usually it. I don't even really have opportunity to sin in "big ways", so I rarely acknowledge that any sin has occurred at all. But if I stop and think about it, I totally sin all the time. I snap at my husband, I gossip, I put off spending time with God during my precious free moments to eat chocolate and watch TV...

Ugh. I'm so not where I need to be in my prayer life right now.