Straight Paths- Your Sins Will Find You Out

Your Sins Will Find You Out

Loren Hardin

The Ashland Beacon

  Doug was sixty-seven when he enrolled in outpatient hospice services with end-stage congestive heart failure. Doug is an interesting fellow. He is interested in world events. He keeps abreast of the news and is politically opinionated. He asks probing questions. We talked about the conflicts in the Middle East and Doug asked me if I thought it was a sign of the end times. He even asked me if I was afraid to die. I thought I, as Doug’s hospice social worker, was supposed to ask him that question.

                  Doug initiated a discussion about the Holy Trinity. He questioned how the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit could be one in the same. He asked me why the Catholic Church always ends their prayers with, “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” while protestants typically don’t. He suggested, “You should write a column about it”. I told Doug that if I write a story about him that it wouldn’t be about anything that profound. I’d write about the green cats.

                 Before launching the story about the green cats, I’m sharing an anecdote that dispels the common misconception that all we talk about in hospice is death and dying. Doug admitted to our staff that he has a crush on Dolly Parton. One day he jokingly asked, “If you see Dolly out there tell her I’d like for her to visit me.” I replied, “I’ll see what I can do”. The following week, Doug’s hospice nurse, Cindy, showed up in a Dolly Parton costume. I was told that Doug was ecstatic. I wish I could have been there to photograph his expression.

                 Now for the story about the green cats. Here’s Doug: “My friend, Jerry, and I were just kids, around five or six. I don’t know where we got the idea. I think we were just tired of playing cowboys and Indians, Roy Rogers, and Gene Autry. So, we decided to round up all the cats in the neighborhood. We caught every cat we could find. It didn’t matter if the cat belonged to the chief of police or was a stray. We had about three burlap sacks full of cats. We took the cats to Jerry’s garage, and we painted all the cats green with a paint brush, and we turned them loose on New Boston.

                 “We had a lot of people mad at us. They were ready to hang two little boys. The police tracked green paw prints back to Jerry’s parents’ garage and they ended up at both of our houses. I guess they decided they needed to teach us a lesson. When they asked me why I did it, I told them, “Jerry talked me into it”, and Jerry told them that I talked him into it. I guess that way we shared the blame equally. And my mom thought I needed to be taught a lesson with a big switch. But I hated the grounding even more. Now you know what kind of a person you are dealing with.”

                 On a spiritual level, we aren’t much different than those two little boys, are we? We think we can hide our sins, that there are secret places. But God declares, “Can a man hide himself in hiding places, so I do not see him… (Jeremiah 23:23-24); “Be sure your sins will find you out.” (Numbers 32:23) Seeing how our actions leave a trail leading back to us, we would be wise to live in the light of truth. For God won’t forgive excuses but He does forgive sins sincerely confessed.

                 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth in not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”  (I John 8-10).

                 Loren Hardin was a social worker with Southern Ohio Medical Center Hospice for twenty-nine years. You can purchase his book, “Straight Paths: Insights for living from those who have finished the course”, at Amazon.