Fragrantly Stained
Last week I had two things going on in the same day: I had an 8-year-old son with a terrible migraine accompanied by a fever. He laid in his room in the dark all afternoon, trying to find relief.
At the same time, my husband is very busy this time of year and he had an old oven that he needed cleaned so he could get it out of our barn. (If you are right now asking why we had a spare, old oven, I'd tell you that this kind of stuff is common in our family because we are very weird. And it's not even the only old oven we have in our barn.)
ANYWAY, since my husband was extremely busy, I was cleaning the oven. [Let me insert this here: if you've never cleaned an oven, in the heat, inside and out, you've never really been dirty.] I spent over an hour and walked away from a spotless oven feeling like all the gunk from it was now on me. I found it in my hair, on my arms, shirt, and in every crease in my fingers. I was greasy.
I walked into the house feeling SO GROSS. I knew I needed a shower, but first I wanted to check on that sick little boy with a fever and headache. So I changed shirts and lathered my hands and arms--well above my elbows--with dish detergent. (That's a little secret for you out there: if you're greasy for any reason, dish detergent is the miracle cure.)
I slipped into my son's room quietly, feeling his face and forehead. Half-asleep, he sweetly whispered, "Mmmmm! What is that wonderful smell?!?!"
I shook my head as I smiled and said, "Palmolive." 😊
He hadn't seen the grease, the funk, the goop that I had all over me just a few minutes before. He smelled only the one thing that could clean me. And though my fingernails were still a rusty-colored stain, I was clean.
Stained, but clean.
And as I walked out of his room, I kept pondering that idea, realizing that was what Jesus did to me:
"though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool" (Isaiah 1:18)
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9)
"Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow" (Psalm 51:7)
We come to Jesus in our sin--while we were still sinners, he died for us (Romans 5:8)--and He sees us looking just like I did: sin-stained, greasy, gunky. We can't clean the sin from ourselves; He does it.
And though the stains of sin are still there,
oh, did you hear that?
And though the stains of sin are still there, we are clean. He makes us pure and clean and perfect with His death and resurrection.
Your past isn't gone. You may still limp from the foolishness or the hatred or the flat-out evil that came from yourself or someone else. Jesus's blood has the ability to redeem your past sins for His glory. (Oh, somebody whisper hallelujah.)
So though you might be walking around with the stain of sin still crusted around your fingernails, you smell fresh and new:
"But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of Him everywhere" (2 Corinthians 2:14).
@leslienotebook
myleslienotebook@gmail.com
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