Clean Clothes

   We are home again.  We arrived yesterday around suppertime and have been busy with the typical post-vacation chores: going through the mail, sorting out the clothes, cleaning up the car, throwing away the leftovers that were in our refrigerator a week ago before we left on vacation, putting things away.  This process has been complicated by the fact that our washing machine is not working well (it won't drain properly) so we will be having to make trips to the local laundromat.  In doing so, we hope our children understand that having a washer and dryer in the house is a blessing, especially when both are working well!
   We also went to church this morning.  This too was a blessing.  We were confronted with a message from our pastor based on Leviticus 16 and 23 -- The Day of Atonement.  One of his key points is that we do not recognize or remember the holiness of God and we tend to overemphasize the holiness of self.  "We need to meet God halfway" is a sentiment that has no biblical basis.  A holy God living among an unholy people is a fascinating concept, one that must be pondered only with the accompanying amount of awe that makes it all even somewhat understandable.  There is nothing we can do to make ourselves holy enough to meet with God on our own.  It is only when we give ourselves over to him fully, broken and filthy as we are, that he then can do something with us.  It is he that makes us clean and worthy.  It is he that has the power to restore us and make us adoptable by him.  Only he has the authority to make things right.
   And again, it all speaks to me and my cancer.  I have no power over this disease.  I can take a shower, put on my best clothes, comb my hair (wait a minute...I can't do that), play a musical instrument, learn a foreign language or two, and win a Nobel Prize, but I will still have cancer.  All of the outward stuff does not clean up what is inherently me.  I must leave it up to God to restore and make right.  "I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God.  For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness..." (Isaiah 61:10).  If I am to be a true follower of God, I must allow him to dress me!  This is a part of his restoration project in me. I find it all quite fascinating that God has reminded me about allowing him to put clean garments on me when my washing machine is broken.  I love holy irony.