On the Sunday before the Spring semester, my mom and grandma drove me back to Purdue. We decided to eat at Denny's, as I had never been there before. Upon arrival I ordered an omelet. They asked if I wanted pancakes or toast with my omelet and I replied that I wanted pancakes. However, when our food arrived I had an omelet, toast, and pancakes. Because of this, I did not eat the pancakes at the restaurant. However, I do not like to waste food, so I asked for a box to take my food with me. When I slid my pancakes into the Styrofoam container, I realized that I did not have syrup in my dorm room. And although I would enjoy pancakes without syrup, I knew I would relish the delectable golden cakes WITH syrup. Because of this, I decided that the best course of action would be to go ahead and put the syrup on my pancakes.
After all of this, we headed towards Purdue. We decided to stop at the bookstore so that I could pick up my books rather than walk back across campus in the freezing rain as soon as they dropped me off at the dorm. This meant that I now had my book bag, a cardboard box of winter clothing, my laundry tote, my leftover food, my box with new books, my bible (as we were coming from church), and a book for funsies (because I don't go anywhere without something to entertain me), and a bag with some homemade deliciousness my mom had made me. I knew that I could not carry all of this in one trip, so I decided to reduce the number of packages that needed to be carried by placing my Bible, my book for funsies (that I was borrowing), and my box of pancakes in my box with books from the bookstore since the boxes they use at the bookstore are all the same size and I only had a lab manual and an access code.
Upon arrival at my dorm, I slid my bookstore box under my arm, grabbed an armful of other stuff and headed into the doors. My mom carried in the other armload and then she wished me well and headed off.
After she left, I began to unpack. I shuffled the box with books in it around as I had more clothes to put away than anything else. However, I was using my desk as a table to set stuff down on and noticed a sticky residue. I wondered where it was coming from, but didn't worry about it too much. I slid my box of books along the ground and felt a higher amount of friction than anticipated, but again, didn't worry about it too much. Finally, I picked up my box and felt stickyness on the bottom. There was so much syrup that had spilled out of the box of pancakes that it had soaked through the cardboard that is thick enough to support an entire semester's worth of text books. I opened the box, afraid of what I would see. My lab manual had syrup along the bottom edge of every page. My Bible had syrup on it. This was not an ideal situation.
I proceeded to go to the bathroom and get a wet paper towel to clean up my mess. I wiped the syrup off the floor where the box had been, threw away the box, and began wiping syrup off of each and every page in my lab manual and Bible. Finally, after I thought I had my entire mess cleaned up, I finished unpacking and organizing. When I had finished all of this, I sat down at my desk to check my email on my computer. I saw that had my ID in a weird place and so I picked it up to move it. And guess what?? THERE WAS SYRUP COVERING THE BOTTOM OF MY ID. I proceeded back to the bathroom to rinse off my ID and grab one more wet paper towel to wipe off my desk for the second time.
I have now been back for one week, and last night I found syrup on the bookmark in the book that I am borrowing to read for funsies. On the day of the incident I had very carefully checked the book's pages for any sign of syrup and been very glad when I discovered that it had not been in the path of the syrup, since I am borrowing it. How I missed the syrup on the end of the bookmark that was sticking out the book is beyond me. :P I think though, that I'm finally done with cleaning up syrup. (I ate my pancakes at the beginning of the week).
Through this experience I've realized a couple of things:
1.) If you're going to have food near books, use extreme caution unless you want to be cleaning up this food for longer than it takes to consume the food.
2.) Syrup is a little bit like sin. While Jesus' sacrifice on the cross enables us to have full and complete forgiveness for our sins, and be washed of them, we need to allow Him to convict of us of our sins so that we can repent from them. Plus, when syrup gets places it's not suppose to be, it's gross and messy. In the same way, our sin is gross and messy.
If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:6-9
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times."
Matthew 18: 20-21
Living in Reckless Abandonment for Jesucristo,
Jo
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