Filthy Rags

Sometimes work seems to dwindle down and sometimes I have more than I could ask for. Near the end of August I had so many houses to clean on my schedule, some days I was cleaning two per day. During this time I was exhausted. I fell behind on doing things at home I normally do. One thing in particular was laundry.

The first morning I didn’t have to work, I began folding a pile of laundry thrown on a chair in the living room. As I grabbed a pair of jeans part of a broken ink pen fell to the floor. I didn’t think a whole lot about it except that I could tell I didn’t do this load of laundry. I always check and clean out pockets.

Since I didn’t have to work, catching up on laundry was a must. I grabbed a load of towels and washcloths and threw them in the washer with some detergent and bleach. When they were finished, they went into the dryer.

I didn’t notice anything until I was taking them out and putting them in a clothes basket. There were black marks all over every single piece of laundry. I looked in the washing machine and then in the dryer trying to find what had caused this. I saw marks on the inside of the dryer so I scrubbed them off with a dryer sheet. (Good little tip there.)

I expected the black marks to smell like grease but they didn’t. As I stood there trying to figure this out, I remembered the broken piece of ink pen. The mystery was solved.

Kind of ironic really, the things we use to clean our outer bodies are marked up themselves. If I was fancy or showy I’d throw them in the rag bin but they’ve still got a lot of use in them.

Although I actually looked at it (to be honest up until about 5 minutes ago) as a way to blame someone for marking up my life, the Lord reminded me of my own righteousness (ouch!).

Isaiah 64:6 KJV  But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

So when I reach for a washcloth or a towel and I see all those marks while getting in or out of the shower, I hope to remember that no matter how hard I try to get clean- Jesus is my righteousness. That’s it.