stains

Do you have a weakness?  Is there some character flaw that, time and again, seems to rear its ugly head and scream maniacally at the world, “Look at me!  I am the thing that she can’t seem to overcome.  Bwah ha ha ha!”


Me too.


Today I walked into the dining room and looked at the cream carpet that someone else without four small children, and who probably didn’t entertain much, chose at some point in time.  Ever since we moved in to the house I have dreaded this carpet.  It is beautiful.  But, it’s terribly light in color.  When I look at it, it mocks me.  It taunts me.  It screams, “Send in the red Kool Aid.  Get it over with.  You will ruin me for sure, with your crazy life full of messy children!”


My children love the dining room.  The table is seldom used and they see it as the most beautiful open space, untouched by the mess that every day consumes the rest of the house.  It has seemed to me that it is the weak spot in my house.  It is the place I cannot control.  I find things like empty juice boxes under the table.  Visiting toddlers go in that room when I am not around and drive dirty cars from the backyard on the table.  Muddy shoes are kicked under the chairs when children walk in the house as I am busy unloading groceries.  


Today I allowed my gaze to take in the full measure of mess on the floor.  The muddy spots.  The broken dead leaves that have been ground in after a Saturday full of yard work.  I saw the spots of smashed goldfish that were brought in by careless hands after church, then dropped and forgotten.  I faced the mess.  I embraced the ugly of it all.  


It was bad.  I saw dark stains on white loveliness.  I saw defiled beauty.  I saw inadequacy all over my floor.


I went to the rag cupboard.  I took an old, ripped up dress of Finley’s.  It used to be the most lovely pale pink dress, but when she wore it out in the yard and fell in the mud, I ripped it up and now I use it to clean.  It still has ruffles on sections of it, signs of what it once was.  I wet the rag and got down on my hands and knees, and lightly rubbed the offensive spots.


Then, it was like a miracle.  Water alone took up every stain, removed every blemish.  I don’t know what kind of carpet we have here, but it was made to be redeemed from its own filth.  It can sustain the mess of life.  It is not as weak as it looks.


Perhaps my unsightly marks of poor character can be overcome too.  Overcome by a God who made me to be able to absorb the mess of life.  Maybe a once perfect Savior, who has been torn and ripped and sacrificed can come and gently mop up my ugliness.  I guess I can stare at the stains life has brought and lament the loss of beauty, or I can allow God to clean up the mess.  I won’t avert my gaze any more.  I won’t fear the lack in my soul.  It is my awareness of my lack that opens me to my need for God.   There blooms the beauty in my ashes of life.  There is the bountiful blessing of a plate of burnt toast.  


I am in need of a Savior.  


Oh, what a glorious blessing lack and weakness can be!