I Don't Mind Your Mess!

These look better on a plate than the floor!

So tonight while making supper, I mistakingly left the bag of green peas on the counter - open. The next thing I know, it felt like one of those slow motion scenes in movies as my three-year-old son grabbed the bag and swung it around the room while I cried out, "Nooooooo!" Too late. It was already done. Little green peas dotted my linoleum.
"Ok, remain calm. It's not big deal," I told myself as I ushered my son downstairs to play (but only after he had eaten a handful of frozen peas from the floor!). Knowing that worse than frozen green peas on my floor would be mashed peas, I promptly got out the broom and began the big sweep. In the pea craze, I had forgotten that my son loves to sweep the kitchen floor. Actually, let me rephrase and say that he loves to push around the dirt and food and whatever else may find itself on my floor!
With the sound of the swooshing broom making its way downstairs, my son clomps with his cowboy boots back upstairs to "help" Mommy. After several attempts at diversion, I handed the broom over in frustration to my son and sat down to eat my meal while the nice and neat pea pile became a disheveled mess again. "Ugh," I said in my heart to the Lord, "I almost had it all cleaned up. Now look at the mess I'll have to clean up! Help, Lord!"
The clock was ticking, so I knew the peas would have to wait until all bedtime routines were complete and two tired boys were soundly sleeping. After I ushered my husband off to class and tucked two cuties into bed, to the kitchen I returned. I grabbed the broom again and proceeded to clean up the floor - again.
As I swept I thought to myself, "I could have taken care of that problem so quickly, but now I have to clean up this mess!" Then I began to think about the Lord and me. O how parenting helps me understand His heart so much more easily!
"You didn't need me, did You?" I asked my kind God who is always listening. I reminded Him, "You were there in the beginning in perfection, and then You made me - well not me but my great-great family members who were just like me - and then that's when everything went to pot!" I thought of how kind and long-suffering the Lord is.
Even after the flood, after He had mercifully preserved the human race, He said in His heart, "I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Gen. 8:21). Wait a minute, God, there are only eight left on the planet - and they're supposed to be the good ones! He knew that in just a moment of time, He would be cleaning up yet another one of man's messes, yet still He chose to continue on with Plan A!
As I considered such patience, I felt the Lord say, "I don't mind your mess!" O God, give me that kind of long-suffering with joy that dwells in Your heart (Col. 1:11). Holy Spirit rise up within me and shed abroad the love of Christ that I might love as You love me (Rom. 5:5)!