No act of kindness, no matter how small is ever wasted. Aesop
I was so excited! We had finally decided on a color for the carpet in our new house. It took some cajoling to get my husband to agree to the beautiful silver mauve with a little more pink than mauve, but at last, we settled on it.
The installers came and put the carpet in throughout the entire main level of the house. With the pure white trim, big windows, and cream walls it was stunning. Even the fella laying the carpet couldn’t believe how beautiful it turned out.
He stood shaking his head when done, “If my wife had told me she wanted ‘pink’ carpet I would have had a fit, but after seeing yours, I might just suggest this to her the next time we go to get new carpet. It sure is purdy.”
Well, the weeks rolled by and I decided to paint our master bedroom and bath a deep but soft green, rather a whimsy, woodsy green that spoke to my soul. Again, Jim thought I was crazy to put the green with the ‘pink’ carpet, as he insisted on calling it, but I knew it would be beautiful. He left for a long trip and I decided that with him gone it would be the perfect time to paint.
Hauling out the paint pans, brushes and items I would need, I set to, to get the job done. My daughter, who was about nine years old at the time, kept pestering me, wanting to help me. She loved to be involved in most anything I was doing regarding decorating our new home. I gave her a roller brush and showed her how to begin helping apply the first coat.
Carefully, I explained to her that the paint in the bedroom was one kind of paint and the bathroom was another type. The bathroom being more of a heavy-duty latex with oil base. Why I chose that I still don’t know, the regular paint would have worked perfectly well and might have even been better! Nevertheless, I had gone with the oil base thinking it would hold up better with the hot shower I suppose.
I’d gone downstairs to take care of something, when all of a sudden I heard a panicked little girl voice crying, “Mommy, come quick, I think I am in trouble. Daddy is going to KILL me!!!”
Running up the stairs, hoping she hadn’t harmed herself, I was stunned as I rushed through the bedroom door to see a can of green paint tilted on its side, with paint running in a puddle the size of a dinner plate, or more, spreading before my very eyes.
“Oh, noooooo!” I shouted! “Hurry, grab a couple of towels!” Thinking to myself, towels I can replace, carpet not so much!
By this time, both my daughter and I were quite upset. She kept crying over and over again, “Oh, Daddy is going to kill me, he is going to be so upset when he gets home.” Tears were pouring down her face.
Getting ahold of myself, although I was thinking pretty much the same thing, I grabbed her by her tiny shoulders, shaking her, I said, “It is just carpet, we can replace it if need be, but in the meantime we are going to do everything possible to get this out before your father gets home.”
He was coming home that night. . .
Calling one of my dearest friends, Denise, I begged her to tell me how I might get the paint out of the carpet. Denise was a wonder at almost anything difficult, unusual, and impossible!
Asking me what kind of paint it was, I looked at the can that I had hurriedly set in the bathtub. “Oh, no!” I exclaimed. “It is the oil base.”
Without hesitation, Denise told me that she would be right over with her husband’s shop vac and a carpet shampooer. “Don’t worry, we will get this up.” Her optimism never failed to amaze me.
We worked for several hours, sucking that paint up, blotting and cleaning the carpet. Other than looking a little tired and thin in the very most middle section of the original spot, all looked well. You would have had to look really hard to tell there had been a huge silvery green stain a few hours before.
My poor little girl had cried herself almost sick, eyes red and swollen. “If I’d just listened, Mommy, it would not have happened.” She said with a hiccup as she drifted off to sleep later that night.
“Darling, we all have times in our lives when we just need to listen,” I replied. “It really will be alright.”
“Are you going to tell Daddy?” She asked with her beautiful brown eyes as big as saucers in her tired little face.
“Yes, honey, I will have to tell Daddy, we don’t keep secrets, as you well know.”
Closing her door quietly, I tiredly made my way down to the living room on the lower level. For just a moment, or maybe two, I toyed with the idea of not telling Jim; I mean after all, the stain was gone. Right? I could save myself the drama, and protect my daughter’s bad judgment from ever being known. I was sure Jim would understand, he was not an unreasonable man, but he would be tired from the trip, why worry him with the details, my mind argued with my heart.
Then, some tiny little voice whispered in my heart, just tell him, he may well be upset for a little bit, but it will be all right.
A while later Jim arrived home from his trip. He came in the door, taking off his coat and putting his suitcase down; immediately he began telling me about a couple he had seen stranded on the highway. Stopping to help them, he was appalled at how the man had treated his wife.
“He was yelling at her, kicking the tires of the vehicle, and being an altogether jerk!”
Giving him a few moments to relay the rest of his story, I prayed silently that the Lord would give me the words to say to tell him of our own little drama of the day.
Filling him in on the tale of the green paint, oil based, nonetheless, I followed him up the stairs to our bedroom. There was hardly a trace of where the paint had been spilled. It looked fine.
Complimenting me on what a good job we all did in getting the paint up, he could hardly believe that it had been as bad as I described. But it had. Both my daughter and I knew exactly how bad that stain was.
Early the next morning, sleeping with my pillow over my eyes, wishing for just a few more moments to lay there, but knowing I had to go to work, I heard a loud exclamation. “Oh my Lord!”
I heard the shock in my husband’s voice. “Lynette, you have to see this. The paint must have risen through the fibers in the night. You now have a lovely green circle on your carpet!”
Sure enough, there was a definite green spot right there in front of the window. Sighing deeply, I was so glad that I had followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit the night before and told my husband our tale.
He helped me, and together we once again cleaned the spot. It took several more days of working with it, but finally the stain was gone. For the rest of the time that we lived in that house, I would sometimes look at the spot that was a bit more “worn” than the rest of the carpet, and I always remembered the grace and forgiveness that we all experienced during the time of the green paint spill.
We realized later that the insurance would have likely covered the cost of replacing the carpet. But then, we would not have had a reminder of the goodness that we can extend to one another in times of need. The worn spot became a symbol of forgiveness and of God’s unending grace.
2 Corinthians 12:9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.