Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let’s settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.
Psalm 51:7 Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
About eight years ago, this Queen of Klutz wore the crown of Klutz mightily. I think I may have actually elevated myself to a higher title if there is one! I had decided to put the words Hodge Critter Lodge on the front of the barn, and I wanted to paint the letter in a deep barn red color. I was sitting at the kitchen table preparing my barn letters for painting the following day, and I sat the paint (still in the bag from Home Depot) on the edge of the dining room table. As the evening progressed, I somehow knocked that bag onto the floor, and just my klutzy luck, the lid popped off of the pint of barn red paint and it fell into a huge puddle on my sage green oriental rug beneath the table. Before I could reach it, 2/3 of a pint was just laying there looking at me! I grabbed paper towels and scooped up as much as I could. Then I used Dawn dishwashing liquid and bowl after bowl of clean water, and cloth after cloth trying to wash it out of the rug. After 45 minutes, I saw nothing but red water in the bowl and red suds on the rug. It looked like I was cleaning up a murder scene. Yes, I have watched too many episodes of CSI, but if a cop had shown up they would have been spraying luminol all over the place and pulling out their UV lights to check it out! For real y’all, barn red paint is pretty close to the color of blood, and the splatter effect…oh my!
My sister, Chandra, called and offered her support. She googled murder scene clean up, and she told me to try rubbing alcohol. Two bottles of rubbing alcohol and two rolls of paper towels later, I was still patting the paper towels and continued to see red wet hand prints with each pat. Yep, it still looked like a murder scene! My husband was offshore all the while encouraging me, and he reassured me that it is just a rug and not to worry. (He is always ever so sweet and patient with his Queen of Klutz, thank goodness!) But I would not be defeated by that evil can of red paint. After a lifetime of klutziness, I have learned some cleanup skills!! Jeff suggested, “maybe you should pull the rug outside and pressure wash it.” The kids and I had already considered that, but I hadn’t reached that point yet. (But now I had his permission!) I moved the dining room table and chairs, opened the French doors, and drug that sucker out onto the back porch. I say drug because it weighed as much as me if it weighed an ounce, and I am NOT kidding. I pulled it until I got the barn red portion to hang completely over the balcony railing. I lifted the rest of the rug up onto some patio furniture to keep it dry, and I began pressure washing. I angled the flashlight on the railing to light up the scene of the crime. About two hours after the barn red paint murder scene incident, I was able to get the rug completely cleaned up. I don’t think CSI could even detect the splatter marks now! I decided that while it was out there, I might as well pressure wash the whole thing. That pressure washer really did the trick, and that old rug probably needed a good cleaning anyways.
I like to share a few of my comedic, Klutzy acts now and then to remind us that we are all human. We all mess us from time to time, and I have a habit of doing so more than some. The great thing about my many goof ups is that I usually learn a very valuable lesson from each tragic, comedic event. This story reminds me of how our wonderful Lord and Savior is like a pressure washer. Don’t run off yet. Let me explain. That rug was as red as scarlet. One corner was completely covered. It was soiled. I should have just thrown it out, but I wanted to save it. The pressure washer washed the stain right out of it. Though it was scarlet red, after a good pressure washing, it was the beautiful sage green that it was designed to be. We are all sinful beings. We were born into a sinful world after the great fall of mankind that occurred back in Genesis. We are like scarlet with sin, and we all need a really good cleaning. Sometimes, we even need to have the pressure washer taken to us!
Jesus is ready, willing, and able to clean and purify our hearts and minds just like that pressure washer cleaned up that rug. Although He could just throw us away, He refuses to do so. He wants to save us. He wants to clean us up. “Come now, let’s settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool. Though our sins are like scarlet, He will make them as white as snow. Isn’t that amazing? All we have to do is go to our Savior and confess our sins. He will do the cleansing. He will make us new again. This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (2 Corinthians 5:17). What a powerful thing it is for us to realize that our Savior wants to restore us to the person that He always intended for us to be, and what a relief it is to know that the guilt of our sins has been forgiven. Through the crimson blood of our Savior that ran red on that cross, we have been made right with our God. I’m so thankful that Jesus keeps the pressure washer handy. This girl needs a good cleansing from time to time!
Inspirations from the Funny Farm 