An article in a recent newspaper told about a couple who were arrested and charged with child-deprivation. The authorities were called just after midnight to an apartment with a report of a deceased person. They came in to find that the grandfather, aged 51, was dead in a bedroom which was filled with soda bottles and drink cans... 2 feet high! He had been dead since noon that day. Further inspection of the home revealed rotten food all over the counters and floor of the kitchen. All the cupboards were bare. There were a few leftover fast food bags in the fridge. There were two children, ages 6 and 4, asleep upstairs in a filthy bedroom on a mattress on the floor with no sheets. There were no dressers for the kids clean clothes. (Were there even were clean clothes?!?!)
Anyway, it got to me. Hearing stuff like this always gets to me. This, more so than an imposing figure in the shadows of a dark alley, is one of the biggies in my list of things to fear.
One of the things that makes it so is that it can happen SO FAST!!! If just one day goes by without loading the dishwasher or wiping down the counter tops, my kitchen very closely resembles what I imagine that apartment looked like. Sure, our cupboards are not bare, but with 5 kids eating like lawnmowers, it could happen in nothing flat. I'd be willing to bet that if I did not lift a finger to clean up any of the messes that we made, within a week we would live in squalor too.
What is it that separates me from this mother who is now in jail, separated from her two small children? Other than the Grace of God, I have no idea.
Did she ever use to concern herself with keeping a neat home?
Did something happen that caused her snap and not care about the condition of her home?
How is it that she looked in the faces of two beautiful creatures that God blessed her with and let them live in such horrific conditions?
Could that ever happen to me?
There but for the grace of God go I.
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