My Mom was a hard worker, doing housework the old fashioned way. She used cloth rags instead of disposables and preferred her own cleaning potions to fancy sprays. She used to say the most practical gift any young bride could receive would be a bag of beautiful, soft rags. I didn’t have the heart to tell her a modern bride wouldn’t think they were beautiful or know what to do with them.
Mom scrubbed her floors on hands-and-knees and didn’t own a mop. “How can you get the corners?” she’d say. Using a rag and being on hands-and-knees made sweeping unnecessary, because she’d pick up bits of debris with her rag and rinse them out in her bucket (leftover wash machine water).
One day she was crawling along her kitchen floor, washing away the results of a visit from six preschool grandchildren. She loved cleaning up after these little people, calling the aftermath “a happy mess.” She’d scrub sticky Jello leftovers off the linoleum and remember the fun of making Jigglers with them. She’d scoop up Cheerios and think about the pudgy baby eating in the high chair.
On this day she came across a stray raisin and thought, “Still in good shape,” and popped it into her mouth. One chew told her she’d made a huge mistake. It wasn’t a raisin at all but the product of a toddler’s diaper.
She dropped her rag and got to the bathroom as fast as she could. But brushing her teeth multiple times with lots of toothpaste couldn’t remove the taste from her mouth or the impression from her brain.
All of us have eaten food off the floor. Well, maybe that’s just our family. But surely everyone has heard of the “Five Second Rule.” If something has been on the floor less than that, it’s safe to eat. Of course Mom’s raisin had been there too long.
But that was only part of the problem. Her “raisin” wasn’t a raisin at all but merely something that appeared to be one. Appearances can be deceiving, and she’d been deceived.
Her experience is a memorable illustration of the way deception works. Our enemy, the devil, is the definitive master of disguises. He lies, cheats and deceives with expertise, cloaking wickedness in goodness. “Go ahead,” he sweet-talks. “It’ll be even better than you think. No one has to know. You deserve to have things go your way for once.”
On and on he coaxes with endless patience, tugging us toward a slimy slope with complete devastation at its end. He never runs out of ideas and uses the exact disguises that are attractive to each one of us, an expert at his craft.
Before we have a chance to check if it’s really a raisin, we’re chewing it.
(Tomorrow: Believing the Truth)
“When the devil lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. There is no truth in him.” (John 8:44)
My face is still crunched up in reaction to this particular “deception” but it’s so true! We don’t know it’s really baaaaad till it’s too late! Think I will be thinking of raisins in a new way these days…as God’s reminder to check out the morsel first, and see if it’s as sweet as it looks!
This trip to Africa we brought 6 cartons of raisins!! Plenty of reminders that the devil’s mother tongue is NOT “Son-made”!
Tina…you are very clever…I like it! Margaret…your reminder that the voice in my head is not always the voice of grace, but sometimes the evil one trying to trip me up and put me down. Thank you!
This morning at Walmart I gave Micah a lollipop to keep him from climbing out of the cart. A minute later he dropped it on the floor. I stood there for a couple seconds while he kicked his legs and screamed, then I picked it up, sucked it myself to get it “clean” and gave it back to him. As we walked out to the car later I thought, “I’ve sunk to a new low.” But I think Grandma’s low was worse. 🙂 Love you.
Oh, I can see her face! I’ll never look at a craisin off the floor the same way again!!! Thanks for your hugs and smiles the other night – I felt like I was so close to heaven!
By the way – we have a 10 second rule in our house – and Lee is as apt to pick something up off the floor as I am. Thankfully, we don’t currently have a dog or cat, nor kidlets crawling around.
Your mother must have been something else, I love your stories about her. My mother once mixed up a cup of kefir with some leftover shampoo (which one of her six cracy kids must have put into HER cup, it wasn’t me!!!). She always took her sleepingmeds with kefir before she crawled into bed. That night she crawled into the bathroom, white foam bobbled out from her mouth every time she embraced the pot. Not as awful as a “raisin” from a diaper though, but nevertheless……
Jim was a baker at Honey Rock for a few summers. To prep the baking pans, he made a mixture of flour and shortening that he could just brush the pans with to save time. He mixed it really well and it looked fluffy – like delicious buttercream frosting. One day, the camp director, Coach Harv Chrouser came through the bakery. He stuck his finger in the ‘frosting’, got a huge amount and put it in his mouth. Jim says that the expression on his face was priceless.
The raisin story cracked me up because we just had a “raisin” incident this morning! No one ate it, thank goodness, but the possibility of someone thinking it was a raisin did cross our minds. YUCK! I’ll have to tell Ted about your mom eating a “raisin.” 🙂
Keep up with me, Ted, and our Fab Four at four-by-two.blogspot.com.
Hahahahaha! I love this story 🙂