Spilled Coffee
Baby Girl,
I’m glad you sat back down sensing I had something to say to you about this situation. Ask how old he is.
He’s almost four.
Tell Me about what happened.
I’m sitting at the coffee shop finishing up my Bible study. As I’ve been getting the handouts ready for tonight, I’ve had my eye on this energetic, blonde-haired, brown-eyed little boy at the table in front of me. He has been full of energy; not a nervous energy, a happy one. He would run over to the front window and greet the ladies outside like a gorilla and, when they’d mimicked him, he would run back to the table with his grandma and her friend in sheer delight.
I had just about packed everything up when he excitedly climbed up into his chair and accidentally knocked his grandma’s cup over, spilling coffee all over the table, chair, and the floor. I paused for a moment to observe his grandma’s reaction. She looked at the mess, looked at him, took a moment of silence, and said, “Well, I’ve made worse messes in my day.” Her friend went to the counter to ask for a mop and grandma gently encouraged the little boy who obviously felt bad to sit in the chair on the other side of the table so he didn’t accidentally track the mess around the coffee shop.
As he nervously explained that he didn’t want to make a mess, he was just trying to climb into his chair, she assured him gently several times that we all make mistakes and accidents happen. I watched as his shoulders lowered and he relaxed, allowing the women at the table and the coffee shop owner to clean up the mess.
I want you to notice, Little One, how similar you are to that little boy, and also how you differ. There is something VALUABLE you can learn from him if you are willing. In your enthusiasm, you tend to make messes. I want to paint a picture for you that you can both relate to and one that you will remember.
For the sake of this illustration, let’s use the example of your recent struggles with a friend when you have misunderstandings over text. The initial misunderstanding is that moment when you innocently climbed into the chair and accidentally knocked the cup over spilling the coffee.
Your posture closely resembles the posture of that sweet little boy. Your eyes widen a little, you look at the mess you’ve made, and you feel bad. You want to fix it. Your heart is good, but…
Close your eyes.
Now, imagine the scene. He climbs up into that chair and his elbow catches the cup and knocks it over. Rather than simply a surprised look at the mess he made, he starts crying. He feels REALLY BAD. He’s not willing to accept his grandma’s word that it’s okay, we all have accidents and she will clean it up. He WAILS that he’s SO sorry and begs her to forgive him. She already has, but now he’s making such a racket that his grandma can’t even address the mess. Now she has to stop to comfort him, hold him, and reassure him that it’s okay. When she finally convinces him to calm down, she sets him down in the other chair and goes to get a mop.
As she goes for the mop, he climbs down out of the chair and goes over to the side of the table to observe the mess. The problem is, he is now STANDING in the mess on the floor with his hand in the coffee on the table looking down at his shoes.
He starts crying again, “Grandma, my shoes are wet!” She helps him get out of the puddle and, taking the roll of paper towels, she starts drying his shoes. As she’s drying his shoes he cries, “My hand is wet, too!”
Once she has him all dried off, she sets him back down in his chair and says, “Sit here. Grandma’s gonna get it all cleaned up.” As she begins to wipe the table off, the little boy grabs the mop, confidently announcing, “I’m gonna help you clean it up!”
Before she can stop him, he has smeared the coffee around on the floor and has once again stepped into the puddle of coffee. “Buddy,” she says in her most patient voice, “please sit down and let grandma take care of this.” A bit deflated, he lays the mop down on the floor and marches over to his chair leaving little footprints of coffee along the way.
He sits in his chair with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face feeling bad about the mess he made and now frustrated that he can’t help clean it up.
Tell Me how that little boy reacted to HIS mistake.
His grandma said, “Well, I’ve made worse messes in my day. It’s okay. Accidents happen. Sit right here while grandma cleans it up.” He quietly sat watching her wipe down the table, wipe down the chair, and mop up the floor. At one point, he reminded her, “I didn’t want to make a mess. I was just trying to sit in the chair.” She said, “I know, Buddy. It was an accident. Accidents happen. It’s no big deal.”
When she was done cleaning up the mess, she smiled, handed him his water bottle, his stuffed gorilla, thanked the baristas, and they headed out the door.
He KNEW that HE made the mess but, rather than crying about it or anxiously trying to fix it, he trusted his grandma who said, “It’s okay. Accidents happen. Sit there while I clean it up.” He had the wisdom to quietly sit back knowing, “Grandma’s got it. I don’t need to worry.”
When YOU know that YOU’VE made a mess, rather than trusting Me to clean it up, you start scrambling and crying and trying to talk your way out of the mess you made, which would be the same as that little boy running through the coffee shop making the mess bigger.
When you notice that you’ve “spilled the coffee,” I want you to pause and look at Me the way he paused and looked up at his grandma. His eyes said it all, “I wasn’t trying to make a mess.” You’ll find that, just like his grandma, I am MORE than capable of cleaning it up and, as you know, when you get involved, you just get your hands messy and make My job harder.
Trust Me the way he trusted his grandma. Accidents happen. It’s okay. Daddy’s got it.
LOVE you,
Daddy
Romans 8:28
