flying fruit and spilled flour

The more that I make a conscious effort to try and practice the fruits of the spirit in my life - love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, self control - the more it seems like someone is hitting me with that fruit in the back of the head just to see how I respond!! And lately, when that flying fruit comes in the form of red-head destructor baby, disasters in the kitchen, or rude crazy people chasing me down in the C.V.'s parking lot yelling extremely naughty profanities in my window (that happened last week on my lunch break, good material for another blog) all the ooey, gooey, lovey dovey, Holy Spirit fruity juices are NOT flowing out of me!

Last Thursday, I was going to put a chicken in the crock pot for chicken and dumplings.   But I forgot to put the chicken in the crock pot that morning, left it on the counter for an unsaid period of time, came racing home and did a sniff test to see if I have rotten chicken wasting away.  It smelled fine, looked fine, so I thought I would cut it up and just make fried chicken.  But I cannot cut up a whole chicken.  There were bones sticking out of places that I'm sure were not supposed to be there. (Sideways out of the fat part of the chicken leg.)  My husband walks in and just shakes his head.  He used to be a manager of Kentucky Fried Chicken back in the day. I try to cover the chicken with my body and yell "don't look!"

I make my coating mixture using practically a whole bag of flour in our favorite big ole' plastic popcorn bowl.  I drip the chicken in egg and milk, have my oil ready, and place my big plastic bowl on the stove.  A few seconds later I smell plastic burning.  It does not register with me that it could be the bowl sitting on the burner.  The dishwasher was going so I'm grumbling at the boys in my head SURE that they loaded it wrong and my expensive Dr. Brown bottles were sitting in the bottom of the dishwasher melting.  A minute passed and I pick up the bowl to dip my chicken in.  This is what happened!

My knee-jerk reaction is to throw the bowl in the sink which was dumb since the bottom of the blue bowl was melted to the top of my stove.  Flour then goes all over the kitchen floor!

I cannot even begin to tell you the mess, the lack of patience I had in cleaning the mess, and the grouchies that came on me and settled in for the rest of the evening.  I still fried the chicken.  Later on that night Jonathan starts throwing up.  Crud.  I'm thinking "gosh, I really really hope that chicken wasn't rotten."  I start getting sick to my stomach. I down a half of bottle of tums.  It's gonna be awhile before I fry up some chicken again.

So many Christian people joke about not praying for patience because "you know what will happen when you do!!"  I don't necessarily need to pray for patience.  I have resolved that my life is going to be one big humongous mess for awhile. Just like my house. I just muddle through and do what I got to do. What I need to pray for is love, joy, and kindness. I am a grouch "patiently" cleaning up those messes. Its easy to take everyday stress, tiredness etc..out on those you love.  1 Corinthians 13:1 "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal..."  Last night as Chris and I were acting like old people and having our frequent discussion of how tired we are (its what happens when you pop a baby out in your 40's) I asked him once again (in my best whiny voice) "will we ever feel rested again?" He said, "when we get to heaven" I was feeling lovey dovey so I told him "that's okay as long as I get to rest next to you" He said, "wait! I thought you said this was heaven!" and then he adds "Just Kidding! Just Kidding!" with a laugh...  He's probably right.  Lord knows I've been that clanging cymbal lately.  So yes, its good that I wake up and pray for the fruits of the spirit to show in my life that day.  But most of all I need to pray that I show love today - where it matters most...in the home.