Age wrinkles the body.
Quitting wrinkles the soul.
— Douglas MacArthur, American General
Wrinkles. We don’t like them in our clothes, our bedspreads, our skin or in our lives, but they’re kind of like age and taxes—there’s no getting away from them.
Even Jesus didn’t like them, looking for a glorious Church in Ephesians 5:27 that didn’t have “spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”
Ah, if life were only as wrinkle-free, a polyester existence we could toss into the dryer with a fabric softener sheet and it comes out pressed and smelling sweet! As far as clothes and bedspreads, we can alleviate wrinkles easily enough—an iron, a hot dryer—and things don’t look too bad.
Even with physical wrinkles, as gravity pulls me kicking and screaming towards old age, I have managed to fight back. Longer naturally curly hair in my original shade of brown, a Beach Body cardio video that in no way implies I can strut on a beach, and Neutrogenia Anti-Wrinkle cream that I swear is plastic surgery in a tube.
But life itself? The things that are supposed to go a certain way and don’t? Ah, a wrinkle of a different rumple, I’m afraid. Take my last two days, for instance. Please! 🙂 You know how it is when you forget you have a load of clothes in the dryer for a day or two and finally go to fold them and they look like a 110-year-old Shar-Pei at the end of a long day?
Yeah, that was a little like my last 48 hours. I found out that my husband and I we’re the victims of identity theft/fraud regarding our tax return, learned that a dear friend had to call in hospice for her husband, gashed my leg with a huge hole that bled for two days, and then my daughter called me sobbing over a deep disappointment that was the straw on the camel’s back. Add to that edits on my novel that were not going well, and I should be a basket case right now. A “laundry basket” case, to be exact, because for me, the last two days had more wrinkles than that Chinese dog I mentioned above.
But the beauty is, that being the CDQ that I am (caffeinated drama queen) who also has MSD (Martha Stewart Disease, a condition that requires perfection), I have an Anchor, a Stabilizer, a Lifeline to cling to when life gets a bit turbulent, and we ALL know it will.
Again and again.
So, in the midst of this emotional trauma, I wondered as always, just what in the name of sanity do people DO when they don’t have God to turn to on laundry day?
Because He is not only our Tide, our bleach, our Downy softener, He is …
Our Source
We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do.
He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow
through us,nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God,
robust in love. —Ephesians 4:14
Our Strength
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
—Psalm 46:1
Our Comfort
For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ,
so also our comfort abounds through Christ.
—2nd Corinthians 1:5
Our Hope
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him,
so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
—Romans 15:13
And our Dry Cleaner
Lifting the stains from our soul, drying our tears,
pressing out the wrinkles of our lives,
and leaving us with that sweet, clean scent that smells like hope.
Oh, my, where would we be without Him?
I’ll tell you where—at the bottom of a deep, dark, musty hamper, with a crumpled-up life that truly stinks.
Nope, not me. How ‘bout you?
Hugs and Happy Laundering!
Julie
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