Sticky Situation

I should have never left the house that morning. Nevertheless, I ventured out to take Allison, my 3 year old granddaughter, to McDonald’s. When we arrived, she headed straight to Playland as I grabbed us a booth. I took a few minutes enjoy watching Allison play, before heading out to the service counter to grab a cup of coffee. I hadn’t gone far before noticing Allison was right on my heels. Did I actually think for a minute she would let me go for food without her? That kid never stops eating! She must have a metabolism like a nuclear reactor.

Anyway, kid in hand, I went for my coffee…and eggs....and sausage....and pancakes. Once back in the play area, I prepared the food for my impatient granddaughter. Hurrying along, I did a big "no-no". I couldn’t get a good grip on the cover of the syrup and so I squeezed. Bad move. It squirted syrup all over everything. Everything but the pancakes, that is. My shirt was covered with it. And do you suppose my sweet, loving, 3 year old granddaughter would say, "aw, poor Gramma. Forget my breakfast, let’s go home so you can get those icky sticky clothes off?" Only in my dreams. All she kept saying is, "I want pancakes. Grandma, I want my pancakes. Grandma? Grandma! I want my pancakes." She wasn’t about to let me out of that place without a) giving her food to eat, and b) letting her play for awhile. With few alternatives, I ran back to the counter for a handful of napkins, and stuck one napkin over each spot on my shirt where syrup had landed, hoping to avoid spreading the sticky mess. Back at the booth, I began to serve up the pancakes to my "starving" grandchild. The problem was, our trainee counter person had forgotten to give us dinnerware. Back up to a very busy service counter, this time, covered with bright white napkins syrup-glued to my red shirt. I was about to loose it. Amazingly, I survived and it wasn’t long before I was back home and in clean clothes. What a mess that ordeal had been.

Later that night, I told a friend about my day. We had a good laugh. (Note to reader: I was not laughing when it happened.) As our conversation continued, she told me about something that happened to her.

She was going shopping with her friend from church. As they were about to leave, her friend’s 16 year old son refused to get into the back of the car, allowing the adults to ride up front. My friend said she good-naturedly tried to convince him, but he wouldn’t budge, and worst of all, the mother did not intervene.

Being offended by his disrespect, it clung to her spirit like white napkins syrup-glued to a bright red shirt! She prayed on it; she thought on it; and she finally took it to her authority—her husband

He, too, seemed concerned with the disrespect and, in turn, spoke to the boy’s father. It wasn’t long before it went full circle back to the boy’s mom, who now seemed to be avoiding my friend, which hurt her feelings.

"What should I do?" she asked.

"The whole thing seems like a sticky situation to me." I answered. "Couldn’t you have gotten in the back seat and humbled yourself and let God be in control instead of trying to make sure the right thing was done?"

"Well, yes," she acknowledged, "but do you think I did wrong?"

"I can’t say, but by not just accepting the circumstances, and letting God be in control, it turned out to be a big mess. And when the mom didn’t intervene," I continued, "the battleground had already been drawn. It was unlikely that there would be a winner in a situation like this. Perhaps to humble oneself by getting in the back seat would have been the best thing to do."

These are the hard lessons to learn to those who are to be Christ-like. God’s word tells us, "Love never insists on its own way." Learning to be humble is not always taking the easiest path. When we esteem one another more highly, it seems God always intervenes in one way or another to deal with the situation in ways we do not understand. But just trust Him, knowing that you are His child and His works are great.