Clean

In the morning before my husband goes to work and the kids are off to school, we pray together. We started doing this maybe a little over a month ago. This time to just be together before the Lord has become so sweet and necessary for me. Even the mornings when I am highly agitated and don't really feel like it.

Because my husband had to leave exceptionally early this morning, we had to pray as soon as I was done with my workout. Needless to say, I didn't smell like a bouquet of fresh flowers, although I did look like I had just been watered.

Typically we all hold hands and just sit together on our living room floor. I chose to sit on my step stool and told each kid on either side of me they didn't have to hold my hand because even I was aware of just how disgusting I was. One of them reached out anyway to hold my hand. Immediately I responded with, "Ew, don't touch me! I am sweaty and gross." And the response I got: "I don't care."

For a while now, I've been working on some of the things from my past. Some of the baggage I've been carrying has been unpacked and put away properly but some of it is still lingering in other locations just waiting to be dealt with. My quick response to one of my babies this morning makes me wonder how much of it I am holding back from Jesus because it's too gross and I don't want Him to touch it, as if it had any chance of making Him dirty.

For all the accounts I've read where Jesus healed someone with some horrid affliction, or sat with someone who'd been involved in unsavory activities, I have never once read where they made Him unclean. And why? Because there was nothing about them, as there is nothing about us, that has the power or authority to do that. No matter how unclean we are at any given moment, He will still smell like a breath of fresh air after He's held us tight to remind us that we are forgiven, loved, and redeemed.

I don't know what you are holding on to that you haven't fully given to Jesus. But know that no matter how it makes you feel, or what you think it makes you look like, in His eyes you are already clean. His blood has covered you, He has clothed you with His righteousness, and you are now, as you have always been, precious in His sight.

Jesus, remind us that nothing we have done can taint who You are. Help us to lean in to You, to allow You to touch our brokenness and heal it, and to believe that we will never be anything but lovely in Your eyes. It's in Your precious and holy name we pray. Amen.