The Washing of the Water

So this past week I haven't been feeling especially well but all was pretty good up until today.  What happened today?  Today I woke up grouchy and I've been trying to wrangle in that little monster ever since.  It didn't help that I've been in and out of the house on the road with what I can only say are especially bad holiday drivers. So after having two separate cars pull out directly in front of me, so close that I had to slam hard on my breaks, I finally decided I would stop for gas and a car wash.  Let me just say that I don't normally pay for car washes.  After all, I can wash my own car, right?  However, this car wash was more for me than the car.  I just needed some "rain," some water coming down with the pitter-patter, the sound of nature, something to sooth and wash away the irritation of the day.  It's kind of cozy in a car wash.  The lights are dim, the radio's playing, and I can hear the waves...I mean water.  

While I was in there I was thinking about life.  I bought the $8.00 car wash so I had a good five or six minutes to think.  Life is kind of like a car wash.  Things are always changing through the many cycles - wet, wash, rinse, wax...birth, childhood, adulthood, death.  Sometimes the rain beats down and the brushes buffet against you loud and hard and you can feel the whole of everything shake, sometimes there's a beautiful spattering of sudsy colors and bubbles of laughter, but I think my favorite is the rinsing...when the water comes down light like air, tickling the eardrums with its ethereal sound, washing away the dirt and grime, leaving things shiny and new again.  Thank God that Jesus is my rinse cycle.  I can bring all my shortcomings, all my failures, all my messiness to Him, and if I surrender He can always make me sparkle.

"Humble yourselves, then, under God's mighty hand, so that He will lift you up in His own good time. Leave all your worries with Him, because He cares for you." (GNT)  So this is my thanks, that He cares for me - and with my heartfelt thanks grouchiness is displaced, driven from within me, as the washing of the water.

Until next time ~ L.