Oh my, what a night. My laundry detergent jug fell off the washer, and because the cap broke off on impact, all the soap oozed across the floor. It wasn’t until very late at night that I realized why such a strong fragrance was gracing the air all over our home. Disheartened that I had to clean up the aromatic ocean and would have to replenish the soap well before the typical time, the irony of cleaning up a cleansing agent wasn’t lost on me. 

Isaac, who was the only one still awake, sweetly helped me. What a time to have run out of paper towels earlier in the day! On the bright side, there was a giant basketful of dirty bath towels in the room, stiffly standing at attention, ready to be useful once more before their spin cycle. Does one need to add more detergent to a load of towels that are soaked in it already? 🤔 (See answer below*)

Once the towels had absorbed all the liquidy goo, it dawned on me that I should have taken a ‘before’ photo, because, at the moment, I sure felt like taking an ‘after’ picture as proof of the hardship and our work in cleaning it up! Then I thought, “of course that’s the way: one never thinks to take a before picture until you get to the after.” Who wants to show off the ‘before’, the bad, ugly, sad, messy reality until it’s shiny, clean, new(er), pretty, frame-worthy?

Often it’s the ‘before’ that spurs us on to do the work for that ‘after’. I can’t walk into my closet and see the fabric fallout of the wardrobe tornado one more time! The toppling skyscrapers of lotion and shampoo bottles in this bathroom cabinet have got to be leveled! The tupperware drawer is a speed-dating event gone wrong! I think we can all imagine what those spaces would look like cleaned up and agree they would truly be lovely and even worth a photo or two. 

But as I neared the end of the cleaning, I wasn’t thinking of closets and cupboards, but of hearts and souls. Particularly my children’s hearts, though I’m willing to concede this applies to me as well. We desperately want to see eternal growth in our kids, though the process can be bad, ugly, sad, and messy, and it seems like we are in constant stages of ‘before’ in our Christian pathway.

Our prayer for our children, and ourselves, is that they will allow the Potter to mold them and shape them as He sees fit, through His saving grace. Even if it’s messy. Even if it hurts. That they will realize they are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation”. How wonderful it will be to “greatly rejoice” that “the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto the praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ”.  Imagine being “ready to be revealed in the last time” — ready for an ‘after’ so picture-worthy, we will “rejoice with joy unspeakable” and praise our Savior eternally! 

*P.S. I lied. I did take an ‘after’ photo. 

One would think that after twenty-one years of being a domestic engineer, one would know better, but such is the life of someone whose pride goes before her fall. I guess it’s just further proof that “clean” messes are still messes, I am still being refined, and someone else should be in charge of the laundry.