I noticed broccoli on my pillow this morning when I woke up. My first thought was that I must have slept walk and had a midnight snack last night which I apparently ate in bed and spilled crumbs (which is understandable because I imagine its hard to eat in a totally coordinated way when you're eating while sleeping) on my pillow before laying back down. I wondered a few things about that for a little while, because I'm not known for sleepwalking (and if I am no one's told me) and I'm not totally sure if I believe in it. A few thoughts came to mind, 1)How did I get over the babygate in the kitchen without falling over or knocking it down (because I can't do that when I'm awake). 2)If I'm sleepwalking and eating, why am I not eating something more scrumdidlyumptious than broccoli. If you're oing to splurge and snack subconciously, why not go all out and do it right; there should have been cheetos or cool whip on my pillow. 3)Where did the broccoli come from, because the only place we might have broccoli is in the freezer (the place where the ice cream temporarily lives and the cool whip hangs out for a day or so while I voraciously devour its twin)?
These questions were real head scratchers, literally. Thank goodness for that, because while I scratched my head in my pondering mode, the solution presented itself. The broccoli on my pillow came from my hair......and everything all of a sudden made sense and the riddle was solved right then and there. Our house has problems, what house doesn't. The water pressure is bad, the hot water never lasts more than 25 minutes and it takes at least 26 for this man to get zestfully clean, the closets doors are all falling off their hinges and tracks, the heater turns on at night while we're trying to sleep, the stairs to the deck rock more than the baby whose cradle is in the tree tops among the breaking bough (what is a bough anyway?), there's a hole in the celing in the living room, the chimney fell off the house last winter, and our wood heating stove is on the porch.
These have been the normal sorts of things we daily deal with living where we are, but yesterday something new was added. Ever seen the movie Dark Water with Jennifer Connelly (aka the chick who hangs with dwarves in Labyrinth, gets wooed by James Bond being a German double agent in Rocketeer, somehow falls for an ugly green guy in the not so great Hulk movie, and oh yeah falls in love with and marries a shockingly not boring mathematician in A Beautiful Mind)? Its pretty gross, a ghost haunts the tenants of an apartment below hers by constantly flooding her own apartment and subsequently the one below with nasty brown toilet water. There's a scene where Connelly walks into the upstairs apartment into an inch of water or more (ewwwww its all brown and gross) and sees every water fixture flooded with nasty brown water (that I picture smelling somehow like chai spice mixed with pickle juice). Do you see where I'm going?
Our kitchen sink, which has two basins, was flooded with three inches of water in the right basin, dark water. At first I wondered about a little bratty ghost flooding my house, but then I remembered I really don't believe in ghosts (but I do believe in Venkmen, Stanz, Spangler and Zedmore) so that was out of the question. I'm not exactly a master of all trades, or any trade for that matter. But this year has been a chance to do new things in the family of home repair, so I tackled to fix the sink. I put on my cool plumber pants and grabbed my leatherman (I don't have a monkey wrench) to unscrew the couplings on the pipes. But before I did that, I got smart.
If a plunger removes clogs in the toilet, pushes them through, then a plunger in the sink must do the same thing right? Not quite, especially when the sink is double basin and the clog is REALLY stuck. I placed the plunger in the drain, got a real strong He-Man grip on it, and pushed hard, really hard. A few weeks ago we had Vacation Bible School and we did an experiment with tonic water and Mentos, where the water comes exploding out of the tonic water bottle with great speed and force, and a large quantity of water. Apparently I did a similar experiment yesterday, because when I used my Superman meets He-Man plus the Hulk strength and pushed on the plunger with the drain, the water from the sink went down the drain!!!! And out the other drain like a mento-tonic water reaction, getting me white quite wet. Thinking it was a fluke, I tried a bit harder this time, adding in my Popeye reserve strength, and to my surprise the eruption of dark icky water was bigger, shot taller, and soaked the left side of my body.
I wasn't too happy. I was wet, I smelled like dishsoap mixed with grease, there were particles of rice and broccoli everywhere, including in my hair. To top it off, there was my always supportive wife, guffawing at me with this boisterous, red-faced laugh she has that says in a very gentle and sweet way "sucks to be you." I realized at that point it was time to call the plumber, because I wasn't going to deal with messy, dirty stuff anymore. I decided to wash out the day and the rice with a nice hot shower. However the shower was cold and while I waited for it to heat up, I fell asleep, with dishwater, rice, broccoli and only God knows what else still probably in my hair, thus depositing the hairy broccoli on my pillow like some kind of messed up hotel maid who ate the complimentary mints for the pillows and is instead using pieces of her lunch.
Needless to say I showered this morning like I always do, and the bald spot from the steel wool where my hair and skin use to be in order to make sure all the food and dirt was gone will eventually be forgotten. I figured that was my big thing for the day, sleeping in dishwater, and it was all behind me, because feeling gross was just an overstock from the night before. But by the end of the day, my keys to the church ended up getting a bath too.
We don't have garbage pick-up here at the house, so we our garbage goes in the dumpster at the corps (church) and added to the rest of the garbage. Its a small little dumpster that saves us more than $2500 a year on dumping fees, and I always have fun filling it. Because it rains a lot here, the chain that keeps the dumpster closed is always wet, and because the chain in always wet, whenever it touches the ground which it does ofen it brings dirt up with it. So I'm very careful in handling the chain because I like my uniform and my hands to stay clean and free of rust dust.
After placing my garbage in the dumpster and getting back into the van, I noticed a few smudges of dirt on my hands and on my pants. No worries I thought, easily removed in the bathroom with some soap and some TLC. But when I got into the van, pulled the U-turn in our parking lot, and swung around to the front of the building, I noticed a very disgusting, nausea inducing smell. I looked around the van, saw nothing that could cause the smell and began to do my pondering pose to think about what was causing that gut rending smell. As my hand passed by my face heading for my wonderfully clean hair, the smell hit harder than ever, and I noticed it was coming from the dirt on my hand, which wasn't a mystery dirt but rather some sort of....fecal matter.
Disgusting!! I quickly washed my hands for several minutes and then washed my keys with very hot water and a lot of strawberry dishsoap because I noticed the "dirt" and smell on them as well. As I sat there scrubbing poo off of my keys, I thought to myself, 8:55 in the morning and already I feel dirty. Is this what God called me to? Giving my all every day and in some way always ending up with broccoli in my hair or mystery dirt on my keys? I'd rather go take a shower, and start over again.
For a man who grew up in Alaska, I hate dirt and being dirty, always have-and having dishwater broccoli in my hair and doo doo on my hands is quite discouraging, because its gross. I kept thinking what's this got to do with my ministry, why am I feeling so disgusting and dirty today, I should be well rested and clean to go about God's work. This is when the words of Nehemiah 6:9 came to mind, "They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, "Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed." But I prayed, "Now strengthen my hands."
I didn't really know what that meant or what it had to do with me today. That is until someone came into my door asking for help with an electric bill. I'm glad to help out someone in need, which this particular genuinely was, but I must admit one of my greatest weaknesses is not praying with my social service clients or talking to them about my faith, my strength and my joy, the same that they can have. I have been praying about it and praying about it, having the courage to step out and share. Though I felt discouraged this morning and wanted to give up, do the bare minimum I had to do, then wash my ickyness away, I asked God to strengthen my hands (be they dirty or clean) so I can work for him today.
Thank God He gave me strength, I talked to this person for over an hour about my faith, what sustains me, listening to her testimony, her amazingly strong faith, her opinions about the church and her experience within it (all of which I understand, sadly). We talked about things like building egos or encouraging humility, servanthood or ladder climbing, physical healing and ultimate healing, sin and whose fault it is, why bad things happen, all sorts of topics. I was blessed by the conversation and although I doubt she'll make it to our church family this Sunday, I feel that God used me to plant a seed, and what a miracle that is. When I asked her at first if I could pray with her, her answer was a bit.......scared. But after talking, when I asked her if I could pray with her, she enthusiastically responded yes and held my hand as I prayed, giving me a huge hug afterwards. I got to a art of God's ministry today, and to think I could have gone back to bed.
Now the verse of Nehemiah holds true for my story today. I realize that things like an erupting sink and a padlok smeared with droppings are just one of the many things Satan can use on me to discourage me, bum me out, give me a bad attitude, prevent me from fulfilling my calling and serving the way God wants me to serve Him today or any day. Had I let my day be ruined by poo and dishwater, I would have just agreed to pay her bill and said goodbye and goodluck, but instead I got to show and share the love of Jesus, because I asked and He answered, He strengthened my hands, my resolve, my determination to serve Him today. Thank God he helped me stay firm, not yielding a foothold to Satan.
Ministry is dirty, hard work sometimes, just like following God is. Satan hates my servie, hates my faith and my determination to follow, so he tries to get me to focus on the hard and dirty stuff and let it get me down. He wants to ruin my attitude and discourage me, because if he does, my work, what I've been called to do, won't be completed. But, today, broccoli in the hair, mystery dirt on my hands did not prevent me from lifting up hands with someone in prayer, and I thank God for that and ask for His strength to do the same tomorrow.
BLT says.........let your hands be strengthened by the Spirit to do the Lord's Will!
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