Grace Like Shampoo.

Saturday night. Jenna and I were to my home in Iowa, visiting my family. My sister Victoria and I were up watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It was around midnight.
Chara, my families dog, was barking to be let in. She is a black with white belly Britney Spaniel and Lab mix. Almost 11-years old. If she was a high school guy, she would fit right in with her shaggy fur and slightly curled up tail. Weighs around 60 pounds. Head comes to your waist, maybe a little above. She has been a huge part of our family since we got her as a pup. Very devoted dog. The sort that you can let off a leash and are assured she won't run away screaming. Victoria got up to let her in.
Oh the night we were about to find ourselves in the midst of.

Toria, as we call her, came into the living room where I was sitting, waiting for the commercials to stop their jabber, and said with a slightly distressed, slightly confused look on her face: "Chara is drooling from both sides of her mouth."
"What?" I asked.
"Chara has lots of drool running from both sides of her mouth."
"Ok. Well, let her in and we'll see why."
Just so you know right now, we never figured out why she had such drool coming from her mouth. But she was right because it was as if the fountain of youth had found its way through her insides and out her mouth.
But the story continues...
The moment that hound entered the house, I felt some terrorist group proclaiming war against my nose. Chara came in stinking. She smelled awful. The odor filled the house immediately.
Since it was my parent's house, I did the only thing I knew to do which was wake them. This began the long part of the night, as the three of us -- Toria, my mother, and I -- went to work trying to remove the stench. My mom tried a damp cloth and dog shampoo. Dry. Not going to work. We need more ammo. We need water.
Shower time.
So I stripped of everything but my boxers (yes, I just said my boxers... don't get your undies all in a tizzy) and beckoned Chara come into the shower with me. It was in that shower that I first began to realize the bigger picture of what this event was showering me... I mean showing me. There in the half-bath shower of my parent's main floor bathroom. With a solid fiberglass door and shower head on a hose. At 12:30am. Trying to hold my breath from the smell which was now locked up in the small space that Chara and I now occupied together. I scrubbed. Soaked. Rinsed. And scrubbed a little more. All trying to overcome the stink that Chara got herself into.
In that shower, wet and covered in clumpy black hair from Chara's coat, thoughts of God filled my mind. Thoughts that would not permit me loose until I had fought and thought and fought some more. God was taking another occasion to teach me truth. His truth. The only truth that is truth.
There are so many times we get ourselves into a stink of a situation. We wreak! We're dirty. And we don't even realize it. God has to take us by the hand and lead us into the shower with Him. We have to humble ourselves to letting Him wash our stench away. He strips down into His God-sized boxers (I don't know very well whether or not He has need of wearing boxers) and very gently and lovingly begins the cleaning process. The water runs down over us. We are a little scared and ashamed. We don't understand how we ended up in this place again. We keep our head lowered and breath very slowly, as did Chara in that shower. We figured last time would be the last time. But He just keeps washing away the odor that had so worked it's way into our heart. Grace is lathered across our souls. He works it in deep. To penetrate to the root of our thick fur, where the smell resides. The water continues to fall on us. He continues to work on our mess. A mess -- a smell -- we cannot remove ourselves. We try. Chara tried too. She came in from the outside and started rolling all over the carpet. She wanted the smell off her. So she did what she knew best to do. Roll around. But all it does is spreads. She is so very kind enough to share with everyone else. But all her rolling and rubbing doesn't do a thing. Neither does any of our own fixes. Alcohol. Drugs. Sex. The latest and greatest toy from Best Buy. A heavy paycheck. A new relationship or lover. A juicy romantic novel. A plate of french fries. Day time TV. Even our own pursuit of good health. It's us. Trying to fix and rid ourselves of our own stench. On our own. Without Him. And the carpet still stinks.
But still He remains. With such gentleness, He moves His hand across us with water pouring down to wash away the grit and grim of our sins and makes sure to rinse out well everything. Leaving no trace behind. He works in His own perfect timing. And finally, we exit the shower once again clean and smelling like some beautiful scent that the Creator of the universe could only dream up.
The stench and stink is gone. Wash away. GONE! Did you hear me? It no longer exists. What once was is now no more. No more. No more war against the nose. No more smelling like burning rubber mixed with skunk. We are free from the smell. He has made us clean.
This is grace. This is forgiveness. This is the God I am wanting to live for. Willingly jumping into the shower with us and our horrible smell of a mess we made and doing what we were powerless to do.

Grace Like Shampoo.

The Man from Ick

"Once there was a town called Ick.

The people of Ick had a problem – they were icky.

For some unexplained reason, everyone who was born in Ick ended up icky. Scientists, doctors, and experts from all over the world had tried to analyze the people of Ick, and although they all agreed that the people of Ick were icky, no one could agree on a cure. In fact, there was no cure.

The scientists, doctors and experts agreed that the only thing they could do would be to give people suggestions on how to cope with their ickyness.

But experts or no experts, everyone learned to cope in their own way. Some pretended they weren't icky. Some tried to keep busy and forget their ickyness. Others decided that being icky was better than not being icky… and they got ickier. Some just didn't care. But if you were able to get a person from Ick to be honest, they really didn't like being icky.

Well, you can imagine how many people arrived in Ick with a cure for ickyness. And you can imagine how many people were always willing to try each new cure that came along. And strangely enough, some of the cures seemed to work… for a while. But eventually, the cure would stop working and everyone would be icky again.

One day something happened that radically changed the people of Ick.

A long-time resident of Ick began to suggest publicly that he had a cure for ickyness. It was very difficult for the people of Ick to believe that a person who lived in Ick himself could have a real cure for ickyness.

But then something strange happened. One of the ickiest people in all of Ick believed in this cure and was changed. He simply wasn't icky anymore. Everyone thought it was just temporary and waited. But it didn't go away, and before long lots and lots of people started believing the man from Ick… and everyone who believed was cured.

It was incredible! And one would think that the people of Ick were overjoyed. But the people weren't overjoyed, and soon a town meeting was called.

The fact of the matter was, the business community of Ick had been built around the basic fact of people's ickyness. And with more and more people losing their ickyness, the economic future of Ick was threatened. After an extremely heated discussion, it was generally agreed that what appeared to be a cure for ickyness was probably like all the other so-called cures and would soon turn out to be a hoax. And since so many people were being misled, and since it was possible that many more people could be misled, and since a person who would perpetuate such a hoax on a community like Ick could affect the stability of Ick, the savior of Ick was asked to leave. He refused. He continued to cure people, and each day those responsible for the stability of Ick became more and more concerned.

One day, however, the savior of Ick disappeared. It caused quite a commotion, and no one to this day knows what happened. Some said he was done away with. Others said they actually saw him the day after he disappeared. But what was strange was that even though the savior of Ick was gone, people who believed in him and his cure suddenly would find their ickyness gone. And even though the majority of the townspeople were in agreement that this savior was a hoax, all those who believed in him were still cured.

The people who had lost their ickyness thought everyone would jump at the chance to be cured. They were sadly disappointed. Very few were even interested. So the ex-icky people did what they could to convince the icky people that their cure was not a hoax, and every once in a while someone would believe.

Apparently – this is only hearsay – a small group of ex-icky people began to worry that if they or their children associated too much with icky people, they might be contaminated or become icky again.

It wasn't long before these people banded together and moved to the top of Ick Hill, an isolated spot on the edge of town. They worked, shopped, and went to school in downtown Ick, and then returned to Ick Hill for their evenings and weekends. But it wasn't long before the people of Ick Hill became so fearful of contamination that they built their own school, market, gas station, and shopping center.

One morning, several months later, the people of Ick woke up to see Ick Hill covered by a large glass bubble. Ick Hill was now a completely self-contained community with everything completely under control.

One particularly cold morning, an icky person in the city of Ick noticed that there was no visible activity going on inside the glass bubble of Ick Hill. A rescue party was sent to see if everything was all right.

After breaking through the glass bubble, they were shocked to find the entire population of Ick Hill dead. Autopsies were ordered, and the cause of death was the same for all.

Suffocation."

That was a parable I found in the book: Get 'Em Talking. Written by Mike Yaconelli and Scott Koenigsaecker. Very intriguing.