L is for Laundry

Before you run screaming from the sheer terror that it invokes, I ask you to consider laundry.

• as evidence of your blessings. The fact is, we have more clothing as individuals than do many towns in third world countries. We have summer clothes, winter clothes, dress-up/Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, play clothes, sports outfits, pajamas, underclothes. I am THANKFUL that I have a change of clothes and multiple pairs of underwear. All this is possible because of LAUNDRY
• as evidence of one thing that doesn't change much: Entropy...our clothes are constantly in a state of getting dirtier and dirtier, just by virtue of being worn. The good news is, this is temporary. The Bible says we'll be made new, no longer clothed in decaying bodies or clothes that are getting dirtier by the moment. We will be CHANGED!
• as a reminder that we are fallen. Cursed is the ground because of you, God says to Adam, through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Those of you who've stared at the grandeur of what the FlyLady, Marla Cilley calls Mount Washmore, know the painful toil it is.
• as a picture of what Christ has done for me. I go through life and get dirt and muck on me but in the washing machine of his love I'm made clean and right before God.
• as a reminder of the progress we've made. We no longer have to use stones and lake water to clean our clothes. The machines we're using today are more efficient and effortless than those of days gone by....yet the task remains still to be done, that is unless someone comes up with a way to make disposeable clothing--even though that would probably set the ecologists/tree-huggin' folk off on more than one account.

As I sit and write this, I'm thankful for my slaves that are working hard so that I don't have to, thankful that I have clothes to wash and electricity with which to wash them. Life is good.