Moldy Sandbox

My Mom, Stacy, Ryan, Brad, Grant, and I loaded in my mom's truck and hit garage sales today. My goal: fill the entire bed of the truck.

I'm not very good at the whole garage sale thing. I am very good at locking up my breaks and throwing the car into park (after making a huge U turn in the middle of the road) when I see something good for sale.

Towards the end of the day we stopped at a sale. I screamed "sandbox" before the truck was even in park. I knew that I was buying that sandbox....no matter what.

The sandbox:
- Mold - CHECK
- Mildew - CHECK
- Lid - CHECK
- Dad who reduced the price just to get ride of it - CHECK

After we got home I set out on a mission....scrub, sanitize, and deodorize my now $5.00 sandbox. Brad asked me why I was cleaning it so much, I responded "I don't want Grant to get a disease!"

Armed with a sponge and CLR I attacked the sandbox. It didn't even see me coming. Down on my hands and knees I scrubbed, sanitized, and deodorized. The process was not pretty. I scrubbed as hard as I could. I soaked my pants and squirted myself in the face 6 times. Half way through I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I took a break and checked on Grant who was sleeping.

(I slipped on the kitchen floor and tracked in dirty foot prints. I walked into his room and didn't realize that the other half of his monitor was in my pocket.......good-bye hearing......)

I figured that I better finish my task. A sandbox was not getting the best of me. My hands were raw and my arms burned. I kept telling myself "$5....$5....$5!" By the end...the sandbox was begging for mercy. But it was not over. I flipped the box upside down. To my surprise there were cobwebs, leafs, creepy crawlies.....I mean spiders had subdivisions......big ones! I was so annoyed. I thought that the sandbox was almost finished. The main part was cleaned, but the underneath was a mess!!

Using the same method, I attacked the underneath of the sandbox. My hands were really raw and I was really annoyed by the time I was done.

I propped the sandbox and lid against the side of the house. I looked the sandbox over with a fine tooth comb. It was finally finished! Clean. Yummy. Shinny. Ready to do its job!!

It needed to be dried. I ran back inside and grabbed a white towel. To my surprise a spider had called the sandbox home - tried to rebuild his sub - in the short time that I got the towel!

The sandbox, that now sits in the yard full of sand, resembles our lives. Often we judge others on the mold and mildew that we see without really knowing what the inside is like. We judge others without walking in their shoes.

On the other hand we may assume that the inside is in good shape because the outside appears to be clean. Or just when we think that everything is clean - a spider creeps in - no longer making us perfect.

In the end we are all sandboxes. On our hands and knees trying to do the best we can. It may be a frustrating - never ending task.

However, God cleans us, makes us fresh and shiny - with His white towel.

All Things Are Possible
Stephanie Miller