Livin Lively

By Peggy Lively

            I have a hamper in the corner of my laundry room that holds only the clothes that need to be ironed. Anything that comes out of the dryer that needs to be ironed gets stashed in there, and usually ends up going to the cleaners. Because I try to avoid ironing as much as possible, the hamper stays pretty empty and I don’t open it very often.

            One day as I went to put something in the hamper, I discovered three pair of dirty underwear stuffed down in the clothes. My youngest son had tried to hide  the evidence of an accident, several times. Apparently the underwear had been in there for a while, so now it was necessary to wash all the other clothes in the hamper as well, because of the smell.

            A few days after this discovery, this same son had a late baseball game and was given a big Gatorade to drink after the game at 9:00. Since he is usually in bed by 8:30, I knew this was trouble. I knew he wasn’t capable of drinking this late and making it through the night. So I fully expected an accident, and even prepared the bed  to protect it.

            Sure enough the next morning, he was wet. As I stripped the bed and picked up the wet PJ’s, I was missing the underwear. I went downstairs and asked him if he had changed his underwear, and he assured me that he had. So I asked him, “Then where is your dirty underwear?” And he said, “I changed it.” I asked again, “I know, but where is your dirty underwear?” He said, “I’ll go get it,” and started to head upstairs. I followed him and asked, “Where did you put it?”

            When we got upstairs, he just looked at me and said, “I’ll get it and bring it down to the laundry room.” Getting frustrated with his avoidance of my question, I insisted that he tell me where he put it. So he finally confessed, “In the trash can.”

            To avoid embarrassment or shame, he had hidden it under the trash in his bathroom trash can. What baffled me was that I already knew he had wet the bed; the evidence was all in the bed. So hiding the underwear was futile. I had even expected him to wet the bed, so there was no surprise to me there.

            I explained to him that he cannot hide his dirty underwear or it will really begin to stink, but that he needs to tell me about it and bring it to me so I can wash it.

             This made me think of all the times we try and hide our sin from God. We are embarrassed or ashamed, so we think we can tuck it away and not deal with it. But the truth is, if we try and hide it, after a while it’s going to really begin to stink. And eventually, like the other clothes in the hamper, it will begin affect those that are closest to us.

            God already knows about our sin. In fact, because of our sinful nature, He fully expects us to sin. So He prepared a way for forgiveness, through Jesus. We need to tell him about our sin and bring it to Him so He can wash us! “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9, KJV)

            David tried to hide his sin from God and he discovered, “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’ And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.” (Psalm 32:3-5, NLT) The Lord is ready to forgive us and cleanse us. Don’t try to hide your sin any longer. Confess it to Him and let Him free you from your guilt.

“Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.” (Hebrews 10:22, NLT)