Misery, God and the Laundry Basket

 This morning as I grappled with my miseries, I couldn't help but think about the laundry basket full of fresh cleaned clothes that awaited me. Indeed, they certainly were not going to fold themselves. In my mind, it was just another stressor added to my long list of painful things that kept me up at night. How I dreaded not only folding them but hanging them as well. Perhaps in some ways I had no one to blame but myself. My procrastination had now taken center stage as the basket burst forward with a mountain of clothes. I had put off doing the laundry for a few days, and in that time, it seemed as though it tripled. Maybe I could blame the fact that I had a high-capacity washer, so I could leave my chores for a later date, knowing I would be able to stuff every last piece in that unsuspecting appliance and they would always come out clean. Ahhh but truth be known, I, indeed, had no one to blame but myself, adding to my misery. 

And so, I set out to begin my insurmountable task, one sock at a time. Reaching in the basket for one piece at a time, I soon found my mountain becoming a mole hill. Little by little I knew I would find the bottom of that basket, and ultimately it would be empty.

And then this revelation washed over me, like a peaceful rain, gently trickling through my every thought, and I had to smile. 

Have you ever thought about your life like laundry? Oh yes, every single dirty piece of your life thrown into a basket for a later time. It piles up and piles up, until you can no longer ignore it, and you must deal with it. So as unhappy as you are to do so, you take those pieces and throw them in the wash to be made clean again. Then, with anticipation you remove them and put them back in the empty basket to be folded and made new again. 

We let the dirty laundry of our life sometimes pile up until we are overflowing with misery, sin, and sadness. It is easier to ignore what is going on in our life, then to deal with the choices we have made or even potential consequence. When it proves to be too much we turn to God, and he takes each piece of our dirty lives, and places them in his care. He washes our sins away with repentance. It may not be easy as sometimes the load becomes imbalanced, and tumbles around, maybe even making us feel uncomfortable, but in the end, our hearts are clean and fresh, ready to begin again.

Take some time today and think about your "Spiritual Laundry". Have you let it pile up this lent? This is the perfect time to start tackling it, piece by piece. It won't seem so overwhelming before long; God will see to that. And while you are at it, don't forget the clothes that await you in your closet.