“I really don’t like being in the washer.”

I can honestly say I have contemplated one of the wonders of modern physics – the mind boggling phenomenon that happens when a shirt goes through a wash cycle and turns itself inside out.   I checked online to gain some wisdom and found some interesting perspectives.  We could blame the phenomenon on the washing machine gremlins.  You can tell they were there because they shed lint in the washing machine and dryer -- it is their job to turn things inside out and also to take socks.  Someone else made a wild guess that tried to create something logical.   The seams of the shirts create some resistance against the water so the outside of the garment moves faster and the shirt turns inside out.  The most logical answer I found though was rather simple.  Clothes, mostly shirts, turn inside out in the washer because of the turning of the washing machine.  The rotating inside during a cycle turns them inside out as it runs. 

More mind-boggling is the reality of life itself being turned inside out as resistance and rotational spin accelerate and I can barely decipher who I even am.  I do realize God does His best work when He changes us from the inside out.  For whatever causes a shirt to be turned inside out, the soiled, maybe even smelly garment that goes into the water, emerges clean and fragrant.  Put it through a dryer cycle and even the wrinkles are smoothed, and I hang it or fold it, ready to wear for the purpose it was designed for.  Although perhaps the analogy makes a point, the whole process when a life is turned inside out not only boggles the mind, but physically, emotionally, and spiritually, the waters I am immersed in spin, tumble, distort, and exhaust me.  I start off one day at a time, moment by moment, cradled in my Father’s arms, safe, secure, confident in His love and enablement.   But when the acceleration picks up, I cry for Him to keep holding me while my feelings react to the life being turned inside out.  Disappointment, sorrow, lies, blame, unfairness.  Sickness, mental illness, abuse, broken families.  Words spoken hastily.  Words not spoken at all.  Deadlines and schedules, organizing and facilitating, and the drone of unrelenting routines.   And the reacting feelings question the meaning of life, doubt the nearness of God, and scream in silence to understand who I really am.  I really don’t like being in the washer.
We were talking in our ladies Sunday School class and we were being very vulnerably open.  How do we feel, how do we respond, when life isn’t working the way we want it to, and we pray and we pray, and yet God may seem distant, and certainly He isn’t doing things the way we feel they so desperately need to be done?  What do we do when we are in the washer?  We talked about some options.   We could blame ourselves and heap guilt upon guilt.  We could just walk away from God – after all, He doesn’t seem very involved anyways.   We could just try harder – all the spiritual disciplines, all the rules, all the expectations for the “good” Christian.  Or, we could reach for grace.  Reach for the reminders of God’s love and God’s heart.  Reach for the certainty of my identity.  My circumstances don’t identify me.  My God does.  I am His eternally loved and forgiven child.  His heart is for me.  His grace is mine for every cycle of the washer.  When life turns me inside out, He will stay with me.  And in time, whether now or in eternity, the wrinkles will be smoothed, and I will fulfill the purposes He has uniquely designed me for.

                                                                                                            – Bev

(Related Bible reading: Psalm 73:21 - 28)