... you're mine, ok? (Part II)

Another lesson on Christ's love and discipleship was reinforced to me during my cleaning session yesterday was on ... well, I have to tell another story first.

A very good friend of mine shared this incredible story with me one day, late at night, in McDonalds. She was telling me about her trip to Malawi and this one traumatizing experience she had. She was in a village and this pastor was telling them to go into this hut and pray for this woman. As she stepped into the hut, she sees this woman laying in her own blood that is everywhere, who had just given birth. This lady was dying of AIDS, she was told, and the child likely had AIDS too. I don't remember all of the details, I just know that she was confused, and this man was telling her to pray for this woman. So my friend got down into the blood with the woman, held her hand, and started praying for her.

I have learned so much from this story. This has been my model for discipleship in so many ways. I need to be willing to get down into people's dirty, disgusting, mess with them.

As I was cleaning the shower, I was trying to do so without going inside of it, because the shower floor was wet, and I didn't want to get my feet wet. But I couldn't bend properly to the right angle to clean the inside of the shower door. So I got in.

It's amazing what you see when you get down into things.

I had never seen it from that perspective. I showered in it that morning and it didn't look dirty to me. As I squatted down, I saw that it was not so clean, and it reminded me of my friend's story in Malawi. Had I not stepped in to the shower, had I not been willing to get my feet wet and get in to the mess, I would not have been able to see the reality of how dirty it really was, I would not have been able to experience that reality and see how it needed to be cleaned.

Christ stepped into the world, got down into our mess so that he could minister to us, empathize with us, suffer for us, reconcile us to God, raise above us and empower us. Who would I be if Christ hadn't cared to get into our mess of a world?

And if it wasn't enough that I had to clean the bathroom, as I was emptying the garbage my mind wandered and it spilled everywhere. The bathroom garbage. The wonderful, female bathroom garbage, in all it's time-of-the-month glory.

All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away. Isaiah 64:6

I was so annoyed with myself. It was everywhere. I realized then, too, that when I'm doing God's work I need to pay attention, I can't let my mind wander or I will make mistakes. Mistakes aren't bad, they just require clean up. Clean up is gross. You saw last post how I feel about clean up. I put it off, forever, until it gets so much bigger than it ever should have been.

I guess, in one hour, God taught me about a lot of my problems, a lot about my stress and difficulty this year. It's because of disobedience, turned to neglect, then fear, then more neglect, then anxiety, then more fear, sprinkle more neglect and some procrastination in there until I feel suffocated and powerless.

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. En effet, la loi de l'esprit de vie en Jésus Christ m'a affranchi de la loi du péché et de la mort.

So I choose to breathe in and out. I choose to pick up after myself. I choose cleanliness and righteousness instead of squandering my wealth and living with the pigs.