I’m excited to start a new “Month of Themes” for the blog! I couldn’t help but start this off with a week of messes. We have a toddler; so, messes are apart of every day life.
Yes, this really happened. I was putting a couple of dishes in the dishwasher and turned to see Griffin doing a spin move with his sippy cup to spray milk all over the carpet.
I am convinced that the parent who invented “time-out” did not initially start this for the child’s benefit. The time-out after this milk and cookie disaster gave me a chance to regroup before I hauled off and whooped that butt! Instead, I quickly but calmly carried Griffin to his crib, ran downstairs to clean up the mess, and breathed as steam blew out of my ears.
I tried repeating: “There’s no use in crying over spilled milk…” But, dad-gum! It wasn’t that he spilled milk on accident or dropped a few crumbs. We’ve had many time outs and conversations about why we do not purposely pour our milk on the floor. We already have multiple carpet stains to show for his previous attempts. (Hardwoods, I want hardwoods! Sigh. Maybe one day.) But I sat on the floor and asked God to grant me grace and a loving response knowing I needed to make the trek upstairs to get him from time-out. In that moment God reminded me: “Child, how many times have you made the same mistakes over and over knowing it’s not the right thing to do???” Que the grace and gut check! Yep. I do make the same mistakes over and over: losing my temper in an argument with my husband, gossiping at work, not budgeting well, carelessly neglecting my personal time with God. Each situation can make major messes in my life. And who cleans them up? God does. Because He loves me and cares for me.
Does He want me to learn and make better choices? Yes! Just like I want sweet Griff to stop pouring out his milk. God doesn’t want us to learn for His benefit. No, He loves us, regardless. He is always eager for us to depend on Him for His ability to positively intervene in our lives. He longs to bless us through the messes.
But out of respect for His love, devotion, and endless blessings… we should want to make better decisions. We should want to glorify Him as we learn from mistakes. We should want to be better examples of Christ-like love and abounding grace. I want the same for Griffin… That he’d want to obey Mom and Dad. He’d want to respect his home and belongings. He’d want to be a person more reflective of God’s guidance and love. Whether it’s cookies and milk, his marriage, his prayer life, I pray he lives a life after Christ with reverence to lessons learned from the messes he will (at some point) make. Messes can bring major positive parts of our story as long as we let God lead us past them.
So, I told God thank you for a new perspective, forgiveness when I continue to detour from His plan for my daily walk, and a chance to show my child the same grace He gives me every day.
In short, Griffin and I had a good afternoon post milk-spin, and he has not poured milk on the floor since. Looks like God again, “Blessed this mess.”
house of stain 