ANGRY BIRDS

It’s barely 7:00 a.m. and I already managed to topple over hot, steaming, BURNING chicken broth ALL o-v-e-r my kitchen.  I grabbed the paper towels to soak up the mess, but wiping this up was like using toilet paper to dry up liquid soap in carpet, the more I wiped, the more it spread.  Paper towels were stuck to everything, including me!

The greasy grossness was spreading like a plague!  

My can opener, and coffee pot were drenched with drippy remains of chicken fat!  And let me tell you, paper towels are not the “quicker picker-upper” when it comes to dealing with a crisis of this magnitude!  

I call it a crisis, since chicken by-products are one of the worst for spreading salmonella, and IT was NOW everywhere in my kitchen!  It was sliding down my dishwasher, dripping on my rug, land sliding down the cabinets that were open just enough for the slithering mess to crawl inside under the sink.  

I spent nearly an hour trying to get this disaster cleaned up before having to call in Hazmat!

Everything I touched was slippery, slimy, and soaked in sludge!  In the mayhem of it all, I was quickly grabbing items off counter to prevent further spread of this epidemic and placing them on my table which only spread the goo further.  

The stuff was spreading like an erupted volcano moving  downstream faster by the second.

  

In the meantime, I tried to put away some chicken in fridge, when a small saucer comes flying at me with half a stick of butter and lands face down on the ground.  

What the heck?  Why was my kitchen violently attacking me this morning? Did the chicken re-incarnate and come back to haunt me?  

That was my brother you boiled...Man!

All I wanted to do was make some simple soothing chicken soup for someone ill.  I wasn't trying to perform for the Food Network “Chopped”, "Cutthroat Kitchen" or "Throwdown with Bobby Flay".   

I just wanted to finish the soup process like I had seen on "The Pioneer Women", where her kitchen is immaculate, her children rise and call her blessed, Hubby never ever leaves his briefs on the ground, and the atmosphere is ridden with giddiness and perfection while she smiles the entire time her thumb is in pieces under a meat cleaver.  That’s all!  

I didn't like being forced to spend an hour cleaning up this HUGE mess, when I could have been doing something else more valuable and pleasant with my time, like digging candy wrappers out of the dryer, picking up wadded trash on floor beside trashcan, scrubbing a toilet, or feeding our NAGGING feline for the FIFTH time this morning.  I don’t understand how something so simple could turn into such a catastrophe. 

Perhaps my kitchen is still worn out from marathon cooking Thanksgiving week. It is negating any negotiations of functioning properly. It would be much easier if I could just set the kitchen ablaze and move!  Yet, in reality, I knew I would have to deal with cleaning it up.  

I have to preserve the items damaged.  They still have value, and purpose, their just a mess.  I caught the lesson in this as I was spouting off my displeasure of dealing with this desperate situation. 

I wake some mornings in unbearable pain, limping my way to the bathroom to get ready for the day.  This is usually the most difficult part of getting up.  I feel decrepit, old, and washed up during those times. There is nothing wrong with growing old, I love the elderly, I just would like to age more gracefully. 

My body refuses to acknowledge my young heart, the one that wants to run marathons, climb mountains, play basketball with my son, jog with my daughter, dance across a room, leap with joy, walk the sands along a roaring ocean, roller blade my way through reality, and run to the aid of every needing soul.  

It refuses to react as my thoughts reach heights no one can comprehend.  I felt that because of my sometimes physical inabilities, I was useless.  Yet, God never sees us as useless.  He sees His perfect creation despite our distorted view of imperfections.

He has use for every one of us.  Even if you are broken, disabled, abandoned, addicted, divorced, single, diseased, depressed, rejected, or lacking courage.   You HAVE purpose!

Just like the misery of my mess this morning, it may be there, but it doesn't make the kitchen inoperable.  I just had to maneuver around some things in a different way until it was cleaned and perfected.   

We all have ways we have to operate.  Some have to use wheelchairs, some with prosthetic, others with anti-depressants, coffee, or snickers bar…whatever keeps you going!  Just keep going and be willing to be used for His kingdom.  We won't reach perfection until the day we reach eternity.  

God doesn't toss out His children as if they were a toy tanker truck missing a wheel.  He replaces that wheel with something greater to keep it in motion.  Sometimes God's focus isn't so much on the physical mending. Sometimes He just wants to repair the heart.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds”  –Psalm 147:3 Brenda A. Graff Founder of Food For Soul Magazine CAN WATER SAVE A LIFE? CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW HUNGRY FOR INSPIRATION - CLICK HERE AND BE INSPIRED!