Jon, The Merciful

The last few days Emerson and I have been talking a lot about mercy and compassion. Her new favorite Veggitales movie, "Jonah," is all about those two things, which is why the two words have been brought up so much. The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything have taught us that compassion is when you see someone who needs help and you help them and mercy is when you give someone a second chance... even if they don't deserve it.

Well, my story today is more about mercy than compassion. See, my husband illustrated his infinite mercy on me last night. I gave him a very good reason to strangle me, really, but he chose not to (and I'm very thankful). This is what happened: Jon and I recently (within the last few months) purchased a new laptop computer. Well, last night I was trying to multi-task and bring as many things upstairs as I could so I wouldn't have to make more than one trip (maybe I'm lazy, but it stinks to have to walk up those stairs more than once in a 5 minute period). Jon needed the laptop and his ipod. I wanted to bring up the PackNPlay my parents had just brought over and I wanted to take a glass of water to bed. So clever me placed the laptop, open and on, in my left hand/arm, the large plastic cup with water in my right hand. Once I got these two items in place, I reached for the ipod and was carefully walking (I was actually taking marching band steps, for those of you who were once band geeks - roll that toe!) toward the PackNPlay when the large plastic cup with water decided to slip out of my right hand and proceed to pour out no less than half the cup of water directly onto the open laptop. PANIC! The screen immediately went blank - no joke. I stood there for a good ten seconds wondering what to do next. Jon was upstairs and had no idea what I had just done. After my ten seconds of panicking, I decided to give the dreaded news to my husband who was sure to throw me over our loft wall after he heard the news.

I slowly walked up the stairs with wet computer and dry ipod in hand (I left the stupid cup on the floor where it dropped- stupid cup).

Sandra: Jon, umm, so I kinda just spilled a little water on the computer.
Jon: What?! How much?
Sandra: A little.
Jon: How much is a little? Is it ok?!!
Sandra: Well, enough to turn it off.
Jon the merciful: That probably means it's dead....well, that's ok. Accidents happen.

What?! That's ok?! Did I hear that right? And I asked him so. He said it was ok and that we'll just try to get it on again. Holy Moly! I sat down and thought that if he had done what I had just done, what would I be screaming at him this very moment? It kind of blew my socks off.

Well, we immediately grabbed our old laptop and got online to search for ways to salvage a wet computer. We did what it said and this morning after it had dried out under our fan, Jon carefully put the computer back together and turned it on. And as Emerson would sing , "Da da da da!!" It turned on!! Wahoo!

And so far today it hasn't shown any signs of damage. So there are two examples of mercy here. God showed us mercy by letting our computer live, and as far as we can tell it's completely healthy. And Jon showed me mercy after I potentially ruined our new several hundred dollar investment. And I am so very thankful.

So, if you're reading this, the lessons are : if your spouse has done something that could potentially enrage you and tempt you to cause harm to said spouse, remember mercy. It might also blow the socks off said spouse and in return God may show mercy to you!