White No More

There are a few things in life that you just know that you do well.   You might hear compliments and tuck them away somewhere down deep and tell yourself, “Thank you.  Yes, I know.”

One of mine has always been that my whites are brilliantly white.   Silly?---  yes, but seriously a compliment I used to hear often.   I get my laundry prowess from my mother.   She is able to launder out just about any nasty stain and is the queen of the whites, and so, of course I have white whites.

I USED TO have white whites.    Southern Colorado front range living comes with an exorbitant amount of wind and dust and dirt and mud.   The days of white shoes and choosing white clothing to wear became quickly rethought within a few months of my moving here.  

Besides the wind and the dirt, it is no secret that our well water has challenged us through these past just over 2 ½ years.  We have a beautiful , elaborate, and expensive system now in place to filter nearly everything out of our water.   Our water is now plentiful and clear.   It has not always been that way, and our light colored clothing can attest to it.   No matter what detergent or “oxiclean-like” miracle laundry soap I have tried, our whites have been a horribly ugly grey or sometimes a dull brown.  When I tried to use bleach, they became grey/brown with an added weird pink tinge.  

Pride is a strange animal.   I never really realized how important the noticing of my clean laundry had been to me.  Laundry is especially weird in that I can’t hide it—people see the clothes my family and I wear.  We parade them daily.   I can choose to buy darker colors, but all of the lighter clothes simply morph into a grey palate, and I have had to be ok with it. 

Our water is now much better.  The dirt, mud, and wind are still around.   My whites are now pretty white, but they are not like they used to be.  We are in a different place and time in our lives.  I am not being looked down on for my laundering skills, but I am also not being praised.   That’s how most of life is--- do your best and go with it, and leave your pride at the door.   There is much more to life than white clothes, and the things we do well are often not really about us but more about the circumstances surrounding us.  I still wash my clothes the exact same way I have for all of my adult life—but my environmental surroundings and the water to wash them in has changed.  Looking at my almost white clothes is a refreshing reminder of my shortfall to perfection in every area and another visual for me of the reliance I must have on the only one who is perfect.

 Malachi 3:2  “But who can endure the day of his coming?  Who can stand when he appears?  For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. “

 Isaiah 1:18  “Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be white as snow;  though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

Romans 13:14  “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”