I was schlepping my laundry basket from my closet to the washer yesterday, trying to get it all in one trip and failing pretty miserably, leaving a trail of socks and underwear in my wake. It’s been a Monday ritual for the last almost-thirty years, with quite a few of those years also including additional days of the week. As I was sorting it all in piles on the laundry room floor, I wondered exactly how many loads I had done, how many stains I’d fought and conquered (I’m a mean stain-fighter; truly, stains tremble in my presence), how many socks I’d dried and inexplicably lost. While I don’t have an exact number, I know it’s a LOT on every count!

Dirty laundry is a continual, never-ending thing. Once you get it all folded and put away, there are already several new pieces in the basket, so you’re never really ahead of it. It’s no different with the dirty laundry of our hearts, if you think about it. We build up some resentment, or unforgiveness, or all manner of filth that shouldn’t be there, sometimes for years. It weighs us down and leaves our heart overflowing with soiled mess like an out-of-control hamper. We’re often tempted to try to conquer the load ourselves when we just can’t take it anymore, but if we know what’s good for us, we lug it to the foot of the Cross instead. There, it gets a stain-fighting treatment, the likes of which even I can’t touch, keeping our hearts clean and free from built-up grime. We still have to be proactive and stay on top of bringing the laundry as it drops in, but the beauty of it is that we get to just leave it there. It’s not up to us to wash it ourselves, and it’s a good thing; we’re so ill-equipped, we’d stay buried in that mountainous load, never able to dig out and see the light of day.

I may still have to wash, rinse and repeat (and repeat and repeat) my actual dirty laundry, but I’m so thankful that the washing of my heart is in far more capable Hands.

“Purify me from my sins,and I will be clean;  wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” Psalm 51:7 NLT

“Don’t keep looking at my sins.  Remove the stain of my guilt.  Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Psalm 51:9-10 NLT

“Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?” Proverbs 20:9 KJV (Emphasis mine)

“But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” 1 John 1:9 NLT