I want to, but I don't want to...

Our three year old granddaughter asked me if we could go visit a cemetery. We visited one last year and Miss P was enamoured with the old statuaries. She is a girl after my own heart! Both she and her little brother, Master A, love the outdoors and any fresh air excursion. 

This is tulip time in Ottawa but the annual Tulip Festival is cancelled for a second year due to COVID-19. We drove by Dow's Lake where the main tulip beds are, but the area was too busy for small children to be safely socially distanced. We went to Beechwood Cemetery instead, which is the National Cemetery of Canada. Many famous Canadians are buried here and important graves have story plaques in a series called Great Canadian Profiles. The grounds are expansive and beautiful and we explored just one small corner. It is a great place to visit if you want to learn more Canadian history. 

It was finally time to leave and we circled back to the parking lot. Miss P was told that it was time to go to the car. She responded very seriously and philosophically.

"Nana, I want to go to the car, but

I don't want to go to the car.

I should go to the car, but

I don't want to go to the car."

She has grasped, at a very young age, the dilemma all humans face throughout life. We don't always want to do what we know we should do. Self-control can be so difficult, even for adults. In the end, she came to the car without a fuss or bribe. I hope she will always be able to make the right choices throughout her life, at least most of the time. No one is perfect.

The Apostle Paul talked about this in Romans 7:15-20 as well and Miss P really paraphrased his words.

"I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. 

Instead, I do what I hate...  I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 

I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway...

(Spoiler alert...the solution is in Romans chapter 8)