Laundry 101

I do a LOT of laundry!!

Five, six, seven loads on most days.

Except Sundays, of course, when I rest from all my labors (including laundry). But believe me, I pay for it BIG TIME come Monday morning.

So, as you can imagine, I do my fair share of thinking about laundry while sorting, soaking, washing, drying, sorting, folding and putting away . . .

And even MUCH more time thinking about laundry when I have to match socks (times eleven) and, without fail, always come up matchless in the end.

Of all the batches I wash, The Whites are the ones on which I spend the most time.

There's the careful sorting, of course.

And a spot wash here and there.

Then the soaking and scrubbing.

Then there is the cold rinse/wash followed by the hot wash, which is occasionally enriched with a bleaching process.

And that doesn't include the time I spend ironing.

So after all these years of laundry, laundry, laundry, last week I got to thinking about laundry on a bigger scale.

Like the eternal picture of laundry.

And I have decided that I am part of God's Big White Laundry Project.

Because I'm not so white and clean and stain-free as He would like me to be.

And He would like me to be.

And I want to be. Because if I'm not, I don't get to live with Him someday.

And while I am slow to learn, I am beginning to figure out that the soaking and the scrubbing and the cold and hot washes and the whole bleaching process are not only very good things for me, they are vital for me in coming clean and pure before Him.

But there is one thing that surpasses all of my meager understanding.

It is the way (the only way) that I can become the clean.

Clean without spot.

For while a blood stain on white fabric is difficult or impossible to remove (although hydrogen peroxide does a great job), it is the very blood of the Son of God that cleanses me from all stain, from all blemish, from all sin.

It is His blood that can make me, as Isaiah says, "white. as. snow." (Isaiah 1:18).

I don’t pretend to understand how God does His laundry. . .

But boy, am I grateful and indebted to be a part of it.