Why Spilled?

As a mother of five young children, I deal with a lot of spills.  Cups get knocked over, and milk pours out.  Cereal somehow jumps out of bowls and rolls off the edge of the table onto the floor.  Building blocks spill from the plastic containers that try in vain to contain the blocks.  Dirty laundry tries to make its escape from the laundry chute.  Tears spill from precious blue eyes when someone gets hurt, whether it be a bump on the head or an insult to his dignity.  And let's not even talk about the other bodily fluids that spill in the course of a day!  I feel like I'm always needing to clean something up!

But I've learned something in these years of mothering:  my children aren't the only ones who spill.  On a daily basis, I do plenty of spilling of my own.  I'd like to think that the items that spill the most from me are hugs and kisses, encouraging words that uplift the souls of my sons and daughter, affection that brightens their faces, and a number of other things (like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control - sound familiar?).  In reality, however, I'm all too aware that more often than I want, I deal with other kinds of spills:  harsh words, unnecessary grimaces, sighs of exasperation, and the like.  These kinds of spills do so much more damage than apple juice carelessly knocked over that leaves a sticky, dirt-attracting puddle on the kitchen floor or a runny nose that gets wiped on my sweater when my daughter gives me a big squish-hug (apparently, my toddler has difficulty differentiating between a tissue and my shirt!).

My reason for having this blog is two-fold:  first, that by spilling my words here, I will be better equipped to release the stresses of my messy life and, consequently, hang onto the truly important aspects that are left when the temporal is gone, and second, that the heart-overflow that occurs here would somehow spill into the lives of my readers and be, in some small way, a blessing to them.

My example, though it might seem strange at first glance, is a sinful woman--the "sinful" woman written about in Luke 7.  She spilled extravagantly:  her perfume, her tears, her respect and affection for Jesus, her great love for which she has been commended for thousands of years.  All of these poured forth from her without reserve, without thought for protecting her dignity, without concern for anything but honoring her Lord.  May I do likewise!