Buckets of Trouble

When we moved from Lynn Haven, Florida to Mobile, Alabama, I didn’t much care.  I was two.  But as I got older and ventured out of the house, I started playing more and more with the neighborhood kids.  Across the street from us, there was a house with two little boys.  One of those boys – the older one – had to bear the hardship of being named Dupont.  To make matters worse, he also had the great misfortune of being called Dupey.  Who does that to a kid?!  Whenever he and his brother were playing and their mother wanted them to come home, she would whistle.  Loudly!  With her fingers in her mouth.  I was in awe of that woman.  I still am.  I cannot whistle.

We had a swing set in our back yard and it was our all-purpose, go-to place to play.  While some might see that swing set as a couple of swings, a sliding board, and a see-saw, we saw the possibility.  It was a fire truck, a rocket, a drive thru eating place, a corral for our (imaginary) horses, a helicopter, a fort – it was, in short, anything we wanted it to be.  One day it was our laboratory.  We took an empty bucket, tied a rope to the handle, threw the rope over the top of the swing set and hoisted the bucket into the air.  The next step was to see what happened when we let go of the rope.  All labs need a test subject, and Dupey was ours.  We had him stand under the bucket and my brother let go of the rope.  The bucket thunked Dupey on the head.  My part in the experiment was to watch for the results.  Since I couldn’t read or write, I just watched.  That bucket came down on Dupey’s head and I asked him if it hurt.  His just smiled.  The experiment ended there because Dupey’s mother whistled and he was off and running home faster than the bucket fell.  One thing about Dupey’s mom – she never whistled twice.

We were so excited about our “success” that we told Mama about our grand experiment.  She said, “You could have killed him!”  That was not the reaction we were expecting.  And we all marched over to Dupey’s house to make sure he was all right and to issue our apologies.  That was the end of our laboratory, too - no more bucket experiments for us.

My brother and I were not trying to do any harm.  We liked Dupey.  We didn’t want to hurt him.  Our bucket research may seem like an odd way to treat a friend, but we were including him, not trying to do him in.  I have not dropped a bucket on anyone’s head since that day, but I have done things just as dumb.  Maybe you have, too.  And God is probably looking at me and thinking, “There she goes again.  Somebody’s gonna get hurt.”  And He is right.  When someone gets hurt – emotionally or spiritually – and it is my fault, I know that God is disappointed.  But, just like Mama, He takes me by the hand, helps me see the error of my ways, and allows me to apologize.  He is faithful to forgive.  He loves us unconditionally - even when we do stupid things.  Whatever kind of “bucket dropping” you do, He will forgive you (me!).  Every time.

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.  As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.  Psalm 103:10-14

Misunderstandings

As a baby and through my preschool years, I had more than my fair share of ear infections.  Other than that, though, I wasn’t often sick.  When I was nine years old, I had pneumonia for the first time.  It was miserable.  I felt terrible and had no idea why.  When I finally just stopped playing or reading or doing anything fun, Mama and Daddy knew it was time to take me to the doctor.  Something was really wrong. 

Since I had little experience with being sick, I really didn’t know what to expect.  I had been warned that they would probably need to take some blood.  I had not been given a heads up about the urine specimen.  So, a very stern, no-nonsense nurse handed me a kidney shaped plastic bowl and sent me to the restroom.  I later learned that the bowl was intended to be used by folks who happened to be throwing up.  Maybe she thought it would be easier for me.  Her instructions were, “Second knob to the left.”  She was giving me directions to the restroom, of course, but, I could clearly see the restroom from where I was. 

Mama asked me if I knew what to do.  I nodded – which was a big, fat lie.  When I got inside the restroom, the second knob to the left was hot water.  So, I filled that bowl with hot water.  To the brim.  It was so hot that I had to hold it with my fingertips around the plastic lip.  I carefully carried that steaming bowl down a short hallway and deposited it at a table next to the nurse.  She stared at the bowl.  She looked at me.  Her mouth opened and closed, but not a sound came out.  I turned around and went back to sit with Mama.  I didn’t really like my nurse and I told Mama what had happened.  I had just finished the story when that same cranky nurse asked to speak to Mama.  It irked me considerably that I couldn’t hear what they were saying.  When it was over, Mama came back and told me that I had “misunderstood” and needed to head back to the restroom with a new plastic bowl.  I did, but I thought it was a really gross thing to expect anyone to do.  Nurse Cranky stood outside the door to receive the second “specimen.”  I knew right then and there that I would never, ever become a nurse.

It really doesn’t matter much if you are on the giving or receiving end of a misunderstanding – it isn’t too pleasant for either side.  There have been many days when the misunderstandings have piled up on each other until nobody even knew how things got to be in such a mess.  Unraveling it all would be impossible.  It makes it hard to forgive, hard to love.  But, God always has the answer for those misunderstandings.  He made sure that someone wrote it all down for us:

Continue putting up with one another and forgiving one another freely if anyone has a cause for complaint against another. Even as Jehovah freely forgave you, so do you also. But, besides all these things, clothe yourselves with love, for it is a perfect bond of union.—Colossians 3:13, 14; 1 Peter 4:8.