JEANNIE'S EXTREME MEASURES

     Jeannie works like a man, constantly cutting, trimming, cleaning out brush, painting, cleaning houses, doing carpentry work, manicuring flower beds, etc. You name it, she does it. She's a work horse, a human dynamo. She's aways looking for more work and uses most of her money on her family, sons, their wives and grandchildren. Her sons are good workers, too, with as many talents as their mom has.
     Grandchildren are another matter. I have a feeling that she spoils her grandchildren just like she spoils her animals, the pit bull especially. However, she handles things in a wise manner sometimes with actions that speak louder than words.
     Jeannie related to me an incident that she handled which caused my opinion of her to go up about 50%.
     Her teenage grandchildren, lovely though they are, always come to her house while she is at work slaving away at the houses of her clients, and the grands eat the food she has in her refrigerator. Her philosophy is what food that's there that's hers, it's their food also. It's my philosophy, too. My casa is your casa, and all of that.
     A problem arose lately when it became an overwhelming burden. The grands never took their dishes into the kitchen and washed them, so Jeannie had to be welcomed home after a hard, hard day's work and was welcomed home by a house adorned with dirty dishes, caked on spaghetti sauce, dried fried egg yoke, half eaten cereal bowls -- well, all moms and grandmothers know what I'm talking about.
     Jeannie had asked over and over that the grands please take the dirty dishes into the kitchen and wash them, not too much to do for the grandmother who grants their every wish. In one ear and out the other, like so often happens with young people.
     One day last week the proverbial you know what hit the fan. Jeannie got home from work where she was helping build a deck and a fence, at my house in fact. It had been a long, hot day and she had kept up with her son, the carpenter, as they toiled all day in the hot sun. There was still work to be done when she got home, unloading the trailer which carried the old rotten lumber they had laboriously loaded from my rebuilding project.
     Again Jeannie was met with dirty dishes all over the house. That was too much this time. Since words had never worked, Jeannie decided to take desperate measures. She took all the dirty dishes and threw them in the trash barrel outside.
    The next day, same thing, Jeannie took the dirty, crusty dishes that had been left in the house and threw them in the trash barrel.
    After a few days of that, there were no more dishes in the cupboard.
     When she got home there were a few grandchildren there to tell her that there were no dishes in the house so they couldn't eat. Just the point Jeannie was trying to make. She graciously told them that all the dishes were in the trash barrel and if they wanted to eat something they better go to the trash barrel, get a dish and wash themselves that dish on which to put their food.
     Talk about a valuable lesson. Can you imagine having to go into a smelly trash barrel and retrieve a few dishes with dried, caked on food and having to wash those dishes before you could eat? That would ruin the appetite of anyone. Her strategy worked. The emphatic words from the past never worked but the extreme measure of the grands getting the dishes out of the trash barrel worked. No paper plates and cups, she said, they had to get the dishes and utensils out of the garbage if they wanted to eat.
     Desperate times do require desperate measures. Jeannie's methods worked. Every time the grandchildren are tempted to leave a dirty dish on the coffee table or on the floor or in the bathroom, those grands will think about reaching into the dirty, smelly trash barrel, groping around inside it to get a dish and fork, take them inside, scrape them and scrub off all the caked on food before they can eat a single bite of their grandma's food.
     Experience is the best teacher, especially when it means reaching into a smelly trash barrel to learn a lesson. Jeannie taught her grandchildren through experience because they chose it rather than heeding her words.
     The grands didn't know that she had s few dishes and utensils for Gramps and her stashed away and hidden from the sight of the grandkids.
     We do that so often with our Heavenly Father. We don't heed His instructions, don't follow his guidance and then we learn by an unpleasant experience. Some of them might be groping in a smelly traxh barrel for a dirty dish that we have to clean before we can even take a bite of food. Sure would be better if we would listen to God and heed his teachings. It would save a lot of unpleasantness of having to learn by experiences which have dirty, smelly backlashes.