Metaphors in the strangest places

Sometimes God uses the strangest things to speak to you.  We had a lot of "things" on the schedule and we were shuffling and delegating to make sure it would all get done.  And then we hit a small snag.  I had accidentally left the house and didn't realize that the kids car seats were in the back of my car.  So the errand my husband and kids were going to run, they couldn't do.  And I got out of choir practice at 7:45 and my husband broke the news to me "Sorry honey, you have to drive 40 min over to your parents and take care of their pool."  Don't get me wrong, I love pools, my husband and I even fantasize about having one some day, but they are a ton of work. 

Here is a shot of my little one in the pool with my dad!

So while my parents are away they need people to help them out and keep things running smoothly because with a pool sometimes things can easily go wrong.  So I went over there tonight, grumbling all the way, my husband was the one who my dad showed what to do, I can't believe this, so on and so on.  It wasn't good.  I got there and the water level was way too high because my husband had left the hose going for 8 hrs (see the grumbling continued) and the pressure was high so the pool needed to be backwashed.  Great, I knew it, I didn't know how because they showed my husband and I hadn't done it in a long time and I certainly didn't want to screw up their pump.

This is the type of thing I was faced with! Intimidating.

  So my husband talked me through it over the phone. (Warning: You are about to get a crash course on pool backwashing).  You turn the pump off.  And you move this big cumbersome lever to backwash. Before you turn it on you must roll a ridiculously long hose out to your driveway or things are about to get wet real quick.  Then you turn it on and let it run watching for two things, obviously your pool water level to get to the desired height and there is a little lightbulb sized gauge that fills with water and is swirling around and it starts out cloudy because that's really why you are doing this and as it swirls and swirls it gradually becomes crystal clear.  Then off goes the pump, switch over to rinse, give it a quick rinse and then switch back to normal mode and make sure all systems are running good.  Then you have the added fun job of meticulously winding that long flat hose into a tight little coil.  Done. Sigh.  I didn't cause the pool to blow up.  (Don't laugh that was a real fear.)

Where in tar nation is she going with this one? That's what you are thinking, don't lie.  I am getting there.   So I stopped grumbling at this point, finished up my errands and started driving home.  For some reason the grumbling feeling in my heart and the image of that gauge of water slowly transitioning from cloudy to clear was stuck in my brain.  It made me think about the clarity of my own heart.  How often my heavenly Father pokes and prods at my gauges and thinks "Oh man, Amanda definitely needs a backwash today.  Look at how cloudy this is, and look at the pressure gauge. We have to clean this junk out." 

"This is no good having her walk around like this."  Only difference there is no grumbling in his heart as he slowly unwinds that long hose.  And cranks on the knobs.  And waits and waits while the churning water moves around and all the junk, the sin, the bad attitudes, the ill-spoken words, the wasted time, the garbage we watched on tv, whatever your "stuff" is, all that stuff that we let slowly filter in to our lives, particle after particle until you suddenly don't recognize it anymore, and he purifies us all over again until we are washed clean. 

Now I am picturing God putting us through a giant spiritual Brita filter:

One of my all time favorite passages is the Psalm written by a repentant David, after confessing all the sin he had let cloud up his life after he took Bathsheba as his wife and had her husband killed. Psalm 51: 10-12 reads:  

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
   and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
   or take your Holy Spirit from me. 

 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
   and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

I am so grateful that I have such a loving God, who tenderly and faithfully and without complaint about how many times he does it, backwashes my heart.  That his desire for us to have pure hearts compels him to so faithfully care for us. 

There are many days when I feel just like that dirty glass.  And I run to my Father. Actually because the symbol of water is so powerful I have a spot where I like to go for my "filtration", it's where I rest my forehead on the wall of the shower and let the water flow down over me.  I cry. I pray. I ask for forgiveness.  I ask for healing for my hurts. Sometimes I even sing this song:

And in the end, I usually come out feeling more like this:

We are blessed to have a God that loves us like that. 

What does all this have to do with diet and exercise, you might ask? Trust me, the insides need much more work than the outsides.  So I finished the drive home praising God, brought home a peace offering of ice cream to my husband for my grouchiness.  And poured myself a giant glass of crystal clear cold ice water.  Happy filtering everyone.