Crippled and Blind

Fold the laundry and down to school. The day is moving in it's usual rhythmic motion.
Bible first. Malachi. Okay quick read through it so we can get to grammar. You know, the important stuff. The stuff that's going to get them through life. Verbs, prepositional phrases, whoa what did she just read?
"When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong?" (Mal 1:8)
My little Pharisees jump in to condemn.
"They sacrificed blind and crippled animals? Who would do that?"
"They knew that was wrong! That was naughty!"
My throat is tight because I know upstairs in my Bible this verse is underlined and I remember why. I try to articulate it in a vague way, no details. "Some times God asks us to sacrifice something to Him and we don't bring Him the best we have. Not animal sacrifices but oth, other things. Things that it hurts us to let go of. Things that hurt us to be."
"You'd never do that mommy!" This from the son who claimed I should have been Jesus' mother.
"I do it every day."
"How?"
"Well, I prayed for a husband and children and a home and God gave me those things. And He wants me to serve and minister in the place where He put me. And I complain. I mutter. I look past my neighbors eyes and see the mess spilling around them. I see the rings on the toilet and the rice milk and the runny nose. I sacrifice a crippled blind lamb."
Self accusation silences.
Avonlea, "But we don't have to make sacrifices anymore because of Jesus."
Ahh, there in the depths my child reminds me of Jesus. I will never bring a spotless animal or perfect deeds on my own. I can't. Because of this sin disease everything I touch cripples. But there's Jesus, the perfect lamb, the once and for all, the living sacrifice. And I'm seen through Him. And He's still working in me.
On to grammar, which matters not a bit.