Screaming Over Spilled Milk

The milk was cold but my blood was boiling.

White dairy liquid leaking down the front of kitchen cabinets, spilling into cracked-open drawers. A silky pool slick over granite counter top, soaking into cereal boxes.

Soggy cardboard.
Sticky tile.
Wasted nutrition.
Yelling mama.

Ninety seconds ago I stepped away from the boy nicely seated at the table waiting for his second bowl to quickly go help his brother who had already finished breakfast and been excused.

It could not have been longer than 90 seconds.

I stroll back in to this.

"I'm sorry, mama, that I did that," Elias stammers.

But I can hardly hear his raspy three-year-old voice because I'm instantly yelling too close to his big deer-eyed face.

"WHAT IN THE WORLD, ELIAS? WHHHHHYYYYY DID YOU DO THAT!?!?

But I can hardly hear him explain how he just wanted to do it all by himself like a big boy because my blood pressure is pounding too loud in my ears.

It's milk. And I'm screaming.

I feel like Paul:

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."

It's milk. It's a mess. Yes. But it's milk.
My three old knows better. But he's three. He made a mess. But we was not malicious.

I know this, but still I'm furious. 
So now I'm both angry and ashamed.

I send the perpetrator to time out and grab my camera praying that framing up this mess will help me re-frame my furry. Praying I can put my perspective in check with each camera click.

I check instant images that appear in preview on the back camera screen.
I take in the wonder of gravity...laws of nature pulling each drip to the ground.
I marvel at the display of momentum...tiny drops making big splashes.

I breathe.

I remember what my pastor preached yesterday. The truth that answered Paul's same predicament:

"There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus..."

My anger does not define me. 
Keeping calm would not have justified me. 

"...because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death."

I grab bath towels and I sop up the spilled milk.
I thank Jesus.

Thank you for your sacrifice.
Thank you for paying the price of my sin.
Thank you that YOU did the work and now I can live free.
Thank you for spilled milk.  

I've written before about how a whole day of good parenting can feel wiped away by one bad mom moment.

This morning my sin threatened to take me out before the day barely began. Threatened to demean who I am in Christ. Threatened to distract and discourage me from the ways I do love, nurture, and train my boys well.

 

I threw the milky towels in the washing machine and gave thanks that the washing of my sin has already been done.