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I hate to clean. But I love deep cleaning. I adore taking filthy things – things that other people would throw out – and washing them clean. I love creating something new from what everyone else saw as trash to be thrown away. I love seeing the potential for things to be redeemed.
Now I’m working on an old iron skillet in nasty condition. There is something incredibly satisfying about taking what is dirty through the harsh process of restoration, making it useful again.
This is what the sacrament of baptism is about: God drowning us to sin, raising us to new life, calling us to serve for the sake of the world. Baptism gives give me a clean slate to start anew every day. Made whole by God, I can now be used to heal and comfort the world.
Healing, wholeness and restoration of purpose can come through our hearts, hands and souls. Not because we were found in original, mint condition. But because God repairs us. God painstakingly deep-cleans us. God looks at us with love, day after day. We are known and made new through divine love and elbow grease.
This message is excerpted from “God’s deep cleaning” by Kara Shaw in the July/August 2023 Gather magazine.