Messy Messes

We went to the Temple today...hence Costco...hence bought Clark's "Friday Pizza".  I tried to fit it above the stuff on the top shelf by using the tabs that shelfs fit on...simple as pie.  That is what I was thinking and it jjjjuuussstttt about fit!  Just about, but not quite, just a little too small, it dropped, spilling a picture of grape juice.  Cleaning up grape juice from the top shelf means cleaning...well it means cleaning the entire fridge all dressed up!  It was a two person job, grape juice was every where.

Yesterday a friend of mine reminded me that I took piano lessons from her great aunt.  This women was one of the classiest person I know.  I can not think of her without thinking of another messy mess.  She never forgot it either!  The last time I saw her we had such a good laugh over that mess.  I was in high school, I lived in the country and my lessons were in town.  So I walked from the high school to her home.  One day I stopped at the bakery and bought a jelly doughnut and ate it on the way to my lesson.  Back then, students didn't have back packs, so I was carrying my books.  I didn't realize that I dropped just a little bit of jelly on my books, not until we started the lesson.  The books were perpendicular and there was jelly on many of the pages of every book!  We have laughed and laughed and I always remember that jelly mess when I think of Emmabelle!

As we were cleaning up the grape juice mess today I started thinking how our actions, how ever insignificant, affect other people.  Something as simple as a plop of jelly created a humorous memory to last a lifetime.  Spilling a quart of grape juice can be frustrating for two tired people but with effort it can be cleaned up.

Sometimes we do things that aren't so easy to clean up.  They may have a negative impact, not only ourselves, but the lives of other people as well.  That is when we need to repent and as hard as we try to clean up the mess ourselves, only the Savior can can truly get that mess cleaned up.  I am so thankful for my Savior and His atoning sacrifice.  I am thankful that He has provided a way for all of us to be cleansed from our sins and to be brought back into His presence.