Spilt Milk

It was inset day today, which means a whole extra day of fun, added onto the end of half term, with my favourite little people. Sometimes, I genuinely mean that and sometimes I'm just being sarcastic. I'm not sure which one today was. I know inset days are special days for teachers; they get to be in their classrooms, with it all neat and tidy, in complete silence. 
I secretly hope they run down the corridors and jump off the house in the middle of the playground, just because they can. 

For me, I had some stuff to do. I wasn't going for neat and tidy. Let's not break the habit of a lifetime. But I was hoping for some space; some quiet undisturbed time to get a talk written. 

So, one was allowed on his brother's Kindle from very early, while the other three had a movie on at 7am. The baby seemed quiet in her room, so no need to disturb her. I ignored the fact that the one who has a dummy for sleeps, still had it safely plugged in. I may have even got her a blanket and her Woof Woof so she remained in that sleepy snuggled up mode. I put the toaster to good use, and served up everyone's favourite spread of choice, enough to not be asked for more. And I gave everyone a cup of milk with those famous, yet foolish mummy words, "Don't put the milk on the floor. It will get spilt, and spilt milk on a carpet has to be cleaned well, so it doesn't stink". (Why would I say that? I've been a mum for years...I know they only hear the last bit...something about putting milk on the floor...)

I closed the door to the lounge and sat at the kitchen table, and I breathed in the silence. In through the nose, out through the mouth.... And of course the kitchen door flung open and a boy walked in to get a tea towel, with the look of sheer unbelief, and even a shake of his head. I asked what might possibly have happened, and he explained how his brother had spilt his milk. The brother hadn't spilt their own cup of milk, no the brother had spilt the tea towel bearer's milk. Ah the 'whodunnit', the 'wasntme' syndrome which some of mine suffer from. I asked the boy with the tea towel in his hand, if he had indeed placed his own cup of milk on the floor. Yes he had, only for his brother to go and spill said milk. Ah how I love these little fun conversations. Eventually he conceded that even though his brother was the one to spill the milk, the milk may not have got spilt at all, if he had just listened to dear old mum and done what she had said, in the first place. 


That's a tricky one to learn though isn't it? I remember my mum saying to me that if I did pinch my brother, I was highly likely to get the whip of a wet tea towel across my legs in return. And even though I knew she was probably right, I still tempted fate many a time. She was right. Us mothers often are, when it comes to these things. 

I got up, got the wet dish cloth and the washing up liquid, and proceeded to wash the spilt milk out of carpet. My son said that he was going to do that, that's why he got the tea towel. I told him that it needed cleaning in a different way, to make sure there was no stench. And then that beautiful teaching moment came... 

We know God's advice, His perfect way of doing things, is right and good, but we want to try our own way first, and then hardly surprisingly, we get it wrong. We may even blame someone else for our mistake, our failing, our sin. Next we try and clean up our own mess; masking it, trying to do better, hoping to be good. But if we just do this, the stench of sin remains. We can't clean ourselves up. We can't be good in our own strength. Instead we need to be cleaned properly, not by Fairy Liquid, but by Jesus' blood. We need Jesus to forgive us and purify us, when we say sorry for going our own way again. He lovingly chose to do this for us at the cross, and continues to teach us about His righteousness, His goodness, on a daily basis. 

"We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil."
Hebrews 5v13