My old neighborhood, Part 1: Be sure your sin will find you out

DNA ancestry kits have become quite the rage in our culture. For $100, Ancestry.com or 23andMe will test your submitted saliva sample and report back with all kinds of fascinatingly detailed information about your ancestry. However, be forewarned. The DNA doesn’t lie and more than a few customers have been surprised by some very unexpected results. The names in the following example have been changed for reasons that will become fairly obvious.

Neighborhoods were much different back in the 1960s when I was growing up. Everyone knew everybody else on our cozy cul-de-sac of twenty-seven houses and there was a LOT of socialization. The house-moms had their coffee klatsches every morning and the numerous backyard barbeques always included several neighbor families. The Karros family lived almost directly across the street from us with their four children. Two houses down the street from them was the Palmeroni family with two children. Those two families socialized together regularly. The children even addressed the parents of the other family as “Uncle” and “Aunt.” Two of the girls, Kristine Karros and Marianne Palmeroni, became good friends and hung out together daily until the Palmeroni family moved out of the neighborhood in the early-1970s.

Mrs. Karros died in 2017 and one of my sisters attended the funeral. At the gathering, Kristine indiscreetly divulged to my sister that she had recently sent in a DNA sample and was shocked to discover that she and her youngest brother were half-siblings of her former childhood friend, Marianne, who had also submitted a DNA sample. Kristine’s biological father turned out to be Mr. Palmeroni. Evidently, Mr. Karros, who now has Alzheimer’s, was not even aware that his two youngest children were not his own. I googled Mr. Palmeroni and discovered he had died in 2008. His obituary states that he had been a proud member of his Roman Catholic parish and a 3rd Degree member of the Knights of Columbus, and was lovingly honored for “always putting his family before his well being.”

When I heard this story,  the Bible verse below came to mind:

“But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out.” – Numbers 32:23

What a shock that must have been for the two Karros children to learn their biological father was Mr. Palmeroni. It’s tempting for us to condescendingly judge Mr. Palmeroni and Mrs. Karros for their transgressions, but WE ARE ALL SINNERS, in thought if not in deed. We may think we’re getting away with sin, but God Almighty sees all and knows all. All of our sins will be there to accuse us after we die, with even more accuracy than a DNA test. We all deserve eternal punishment for our sin, but God loves us so much He sent Jesus Christ, God the Son, to pay the debt for our sins on the cross. Jesus conquered sin and death when He rose from the grave and offers the free gift of salvation to all those who repent of their sin and accept Him as their Savior by faith alone. Have you trusted in Jesus Christ? What are you waiting for?

On Wednesday, we’ll journey back to my old neighborhood once again for the second installment in this two-part series on how sin comes back to bite.