Proverbs 18:24 One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin,

but there is a friend who sticks closer than a sister.

If you were to ask me, the preferred method of stirring a Costco sized jar of Adam’s peanut butter involves a Dewalt drill and a beater from an electric hand mixer. The drill is powerful enough to stir it right in the jar and the cleanup is minimal if you manage not to spill much.

This was what I anticipated as I put the beater into the drill and tightened it up. Holding the jar with my left hand and drill in my right I pressed the trigger, being careful not to spill any peanut butter on the outside of the jar that would make the jar slippery. The beater went up and down and around the sides getting all the clumps mixed in. It was a clean job.

But just as I gave it one last pass, the jar slipped in my left hand and gave a complete spin slopping the now liquid peanut butter in a neat spiral out of the jar. After the drill stopped I surveyed the damage. There was peanut butter all over the counter, slopped onto the wall, dripping down my shirt onto my pants and flung halfway across the kitchen floor. It was quite the mess and I was standing in the middle of it.

Right then my sister came around the corner into the kitchen and stopped quickly. “Oh my,” was the first thing she said. Then she said, “I’ll go grab you a clean shirt.” She could have just laughed. She could have left me to clean up by myself. But instead she stayed to help me get out of my sticky mess.

That peanut butter was sticky, but my sister stuck closer. In life we all make mistakes. Let’s stick by each other and show up, regardless of the mess.

-Pastor Kristen