Washcloth of Grace

"Mommy, can you tuck me in?" my three year old daughter yelled from down the hall.

This is one of my favorite moments in the day. Selfishly, of course, I love bedtime because it signals the end of the child-rearing portion of my day, but I also love the very act of tucking my young ones in and kissing them good-night.

I'd been away from home for an hour or so, and feeling refreshed from my recent solitude (it's pretty bad when driving for 20 minutes in a van by yourself feels like a vacation, isn't it?) I buzzed down the hallway and headed for her bed.

From about three feet away she looked like an angel. She has long, curly blond hair and a sweet little face complete with a dimple in her cheek. Her big blue eyes peered at me from over the bed railing, a look of mischief dancing across her face.

My beautiful baby girl....covered in dirt.

I'm not talking about a smudge here and there, I'm talking full-fledged mess.

Suddenly my energy began to seep away. I knew what was coming...no matter how warm I made the washcloth...no matter if it smelled like sweet summer sunshine right from the dryer, I was going to have a fight on my hands.

And then something struck me. As a mother, I hate seeing my child covered in dirt. But Aimee didn't care - in fact she told me ALL about the fun she had "digging." How much is that like us in our relationship with God? He can see our sin as clearly as we see the dirt smudges on our children. And just like my daughter, we so many times make sinful decisions because they are FUN.

Like that television show that is so completely entertaining that we ignore the fact that we are watching unmarried people having sex with multiple partners. Or the video games that we play for hours because who we are in that world is so much more appealing than who we are in this one. Or how about the time that we spent an hour on the phone with our friend gossiping about others? God sees that...and he hates it as much as we hate seeing our children when they are a mess.

What happens when we put that washcloth to a child's face? It's like throwing yourself into a wrestling ring where your opponent has suddenly grown eight arms! They squirm, and they fight, they protest and they try to get free. And what do we say? "Hold still, I'm just trying to clean you up!"

We do the same struggle with God when we say, "But I don't pay attention to the racy scenes," and "It's just for fun," and "I don't mean anything by it," and on and on.

I'm raising my hand. Guilty.

That warm, sweet smelling washcloth that we entice our children with? God's is even better. It's the Washcloth of Grace. Because when we finally stop fighting, when we become still in His presence and allow His grace to gently wipe away our sin...that kind of clean goes all the way inside.

It doesn't mean we aren't going to get dirty again. We may avoid that particular sand box in our life, but we live in a fallen world full of temptation.

But, Oh, the love of our Father...waiting to caress us clean.