Rats in the Cellar and Milk on the Garage Floor

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Yesterday I cried over spilled milk.  2 glass jugs of it, to be exact, all over the garage floor.  Along with broken glass from said jugs.  {Sigh}

Little Brother was just trying to help, by toting in the last two jugs of milk from the back of the Explorer.  Poor guy.

The incident sort of summed up the whole day–in my efforts to accomplish everything on our list, I was leaving little disasters in my wake.  Sort of like trying to help carry the milk, and then dropping it all over the floor.

And just when he needed my understanding and forgiveness, I was unable to muster it up.  Thankfully, I did not scold or berate him.  But my frustration was clear.

We cleaned it up the best we could, and left the rest for Mr. Native Texan.  It was rest time–we’d arrived home just in time to get upstairs and read nap time stories, and now this.

I got the boys settled for their rest, and even apologized to Little Brother for getting upset about the spilled milk.  I assured him I knew it was an accident and that he was only trying to help.  “Mama should have been more patient and understanding,” I said.

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Little shoes with milk on the soles, left to dry out in the garage: a reminder that grace is messy.

My Rights

And then, downstairs during my own time of rest, I wrestled with myself.  I thought about last Sunday’s sermon on Entitlement–how each of us carries around this sense of our “rights” to certain things.

• My right to a stress-free day.  
• My family’s right to drink the expensive milk for which we squeezed a special trip into our busy day.
• My right to use a garage that doesn’t smell like sour milk.
• My right for the day to flow according to my agenda.  
• My right to feel frustrated in the face of adversity.
• My right to have children who always do as they’re told and make no mistakes.

God’s Grace

My ladies’ Bible study was scheduled to meet that very night in my home.  The Bible study that I lead.  The one in which we’re studying God’s grace, which saves us from our sin.

What an object lesson for me, as I chewed on the meaning of grace–both God’s grace to me, and my {lack of} grace towards those around me.

Two things are abundantly clear:

1. I am most definitely a sinner in need of grace.  (1 Timothy 1:15)
2. I have a long way to go in learning to extend that same grace to others.

Rats in the Cellar

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If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly.  But the suddenness does not create the rats:  it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man:  it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.  The rats are always there  in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.  [Read full quote.]

Two broken jugs of milk showed the rats in my cellar yesterday.  The lights were flipped on, and the rats went scurrying.  No time to hide.

And so I found myself face to face with my own need for grace, even as my young son experienced a need for a little grace from his mother.

Thanks be to God!

Did you catch the reference to 1 Timothy 1:15 above?  In that verse, Paul states that he considers himself to be the worst of sinners.  The good news is that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”.  And in the previous verse he proclaims that “the grace of our Lord overflowed for me”.

In the face of my own failure, I’m so thankful for His grace.  And I pray He will continue to conform me to the likeness of His Son, so that I will learn to extend that same grace to those around me.

Because we’re–all of us–sinners, stuck in our mess and in need of His grace.

Today I echo Paul’s words from Romans 7: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

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