If You’re Close to Being Crabby Or Have Arrived

Probably it started over breakfast when I thought of a painful memory from my past. The Lord encouraged me through my Bible reading, but it still left me a little on edge.

Then I started coffee brewing and thought, Hmmm. Why is the coffee so light?

“Oh no! Not that!” I yelled. Because every once in a while I put the filter into the Mr. Coffee without putting in the plastic basket first. Thus, the coffee water was fairly clear because the coffee grounds and liquid were dripping down and around the pot, onto the counter, and onto the floor.

Matt came running and saw my eyes brimming with tears, so he jumped in to help remake the coffee while I cleaned up the mess. I could tell he was hoping to pre-empt a complete melt down, and he actually pulled it off. Medal of valor.

“Maybe you should stay home today,” he said. (This would be our 8^th Sunday driving to Libby, Montana, where he has been filling in as preacher for a few months.)

“I’m going,” I said.

“You can stay home. It’s okay,” he said. (Concern for me or self-protective offer? Not sure. Combination?)

“I am going,” I said.

I got my cheerful on and went, because I love supporting my man. We swung by and picked up his mom and her sister. About 15 minutes into the hour-and-a-half trip, I lost hold of my coffee mug and spilled coffee all over my coat and onto my dress and white (white, I tell you) leggings.

Husband looked over. Waiting for it.

But hey, I pulled it together. Sucked in the demand that he turn around and take me home where I could stay in bed all day and talk to no human.

“So, if anybody at church approaches you with coffee,” he said, when he could see I was keeping it together, “Yell, ‘Stay away from me! Back off!’” We all laughed, and that was Jesus calming the storm in real time.

My friend recently told me about her daughter who said she was going to have to buy a new bed.

“Why a new bed?” they asked.

Apparently her siblings had been telling her, on repeated mornings, that she had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. She assumed the bed was the problem.

Bad news: Crabbiness isn’t from a bed.

Or from coffee on white leggings.

It comes from what’s going on in the heart.

Three times in one morning I wanted to bawl or at least be grumpy, but I kept thinking about what it would do to Matt’s morning. I prayed, “Jesus, help me!” while I mopped up coffee grounds, and I prayed, “Jesus help me!” while I fanned my dress so it would dry before I got to the church in Libby.

Paul says:

Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.  (Romans 12:10 NIV)

To put off crabbiness for the sake of someone else is a great service. It’s a choice we make combined with the efforts of Jesus’ own good Spirit doing overtime inside us.

No new beds for us. Just new responses to a hard day.

So who would really appreciate it, in your world, if you could lose the crabby thing?