With a houseful of teens, it would totally frighten you to know how much milk I have to buy in a week. Let's just say sometimes it takes two or three of us to push the cart. When you buy so many gallons at a time, one of them is bound to get missed somewhere along the way. That "somewhere along the way" happened at exactly the wrong time of the year. A few months ago we had loaded about eight gallons of milk into the car, but never noticed that only seven made it into the house. That lost gallon was in the floor of the minivan under the last seat, lurking... plotting its evil attack.
It was during the hottest days of summer and, of all times for the minivan to need a repair or two, that happened to be the week we had to put in the shop. Three days in the shop. Three days of temperatures over a hundred degrees. The milk swelled up and - horror of horrors - exploded all over the car! Oh, the humanity! It lobbed milk shrapnel all over the entire back seat. Milk? No, maybe it was closer to CHEESE. And the smell! It was something like a barf and old socks combo - with cabbage. It made it into every single nook and cranny of the vehicle. The milk/cheese cleanup was nothing compared to the stench fallout we had to deal with for weeks. My eyes are watering just thinking about it. Oh well, no use crying over spilled cheese.
There's a certain cool driving look. All the windows are down, the left elbow edges just outside the window; the right hand hangs casually over the steering wheel. Of course, it's not nearly as cool when you're in a MINIVAN. But we still got plenty of chances to get the cool look down. We're talking about a lot of time riding with the windows down.
Taking care of sin issues in our lives is even more important than taking every gallon of milk inside the house. When left to simmer, those sin issues can explode all kinds of ugliness in our lives - and it can spill right over into the lives of those around us.
God is so gracious and forgiving when we confess even the biggest sin detonation. Psalm 51:1-2 says, "Generous in love - God, give grace! Huge in mercy - wipe out my bad record. Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry." (TM) Nope, holding onto sin is definitely not cool. Letting him scrub away that stench is glorious - it's better even than that new car smell! Now that's cool!
As for us, we exercised a lot of "coolness" riding with the windows down - all through the winter. A little too cool, if you ask me.
Rhonda Rhea juggles her writing, speaking and radio ministries around chasing her five children and running to keep up with her husband, Richie, pastor of First Baptist Church of Troy, Missouri. She is the author of Who Put the Cat in the Fridge? and other riotously funny books, including I’m Dreaming of Some White Chocolate coming in 2006. Find out more at www.RhondaRhea.net.