Today, I went downstairs to get a bag of milk… and discovered an opportunity.   First, it was the smell that hit me….  then the visuals began to give it away.   A whole bag of milk had leaked out of the little fridge we keep our milk in into the carpet and surrounding stuffs… which happened to include our artwork that we still had wrapped in brown paper from our move.  

Needless to say my first thougths weren’t “Oh how marvelously good” and “Oh what a great blessing”.    But as I was down on my hands and needs fighting the urge to grumble, the lightbulb went off.   I am thankful for having milk in my home and to have this for my children and my family.   I am thankful that we have an extra fridge to store things in.   I am thankful that my floors are carpetted in our basement and are not simply mud and dirt strewn with rocks and bugs.    I am thankful for my Bissel Green machine, and while it certainly takes time, it is a wonderful little device for just such a case.   I am thankful that we have many other rooms in our house so that even if this one smells for a while, we have lots of fine smelling rooms to hang out in.   I am thankful that we are so abundantly blessed that we have decorations that beautify our house (and are all saveable as just the one edge got wet on each).   Most of all I am thankful that to God, all of our lives look pretty much like that spilt milk.. messy, sticky, smelly etc…. with one big exception.    For me, that milk is a right off… for the Lord, He took, by what His dear Son did, that which was irredeemable and hopeless and restored and redeemed.   I thank God for my salvation for for caring about me enough to bring me back to him.

2 Samuel 14:14(NLT)

^“14 All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him.”