Baskets, Bubbles and Rusty Bottoms

Yesterday was a strange sort of day.  It was cold and wet and all around dreary.  I found myself, as is often the case on Mondays, sitting and staring out the back window at the fog encased trees; their spindly, leafless branches reaching in vain to a sky that was already falling around them.  Every muscle in my body was achy and tired.  I'd like to say it was from the extreme physical activity I had been involved in.  I'd like to say that, but I would be lying.  By that point in the day I had managed to jump to conclusions, exercise my right to free speech, go round and round the bush with the teenagers, and do quite a few remote control lifts.  I think I had a right to my exhaustion. 

After a tiring period of mental activity (ie my facebook games) I decided that what I really needed was a hot bath.  If a cup of bubble bath happened to fall in and the candles magically ignite, I was not to be blamed.  Of course, Monday's curse was not to be given the slip.  Right as I was stepping into my steaming hot bath of bubbles my foot caught a cute little basket that has been sitting on the side of my tub for a year and - PLOP - in the water it landed.  Now you would not think this would be the end of the world.  After all, it was full of loofah sponges and decorative soaps and other pretty little things you see around the tub.  The problem was, when it hit the water, the water turned brown, a dirty, nasty brown.  There was no way I was getting in that tub now!  I grabbed the basket and pulled it out, but the damage had already been done. 

It seems the bottom of my pretty little basket was made of a metal mesh.  In the year it had sat on the side of my tub it had been subjected to constant dampness and had rusted.  When it hit the water the rust was released and it made one serious mess!  I had to drain the water and start again and, thanks to the fact I have a miniscule water heater, there was no more hot water.  I stood there in my robe, in the cold, with my candles burning and my bubble bath washing down the drain and cursed the basket makers of the world. 

Into this little drama of mine sneaked a thought.  How much are we, so many times, just like that basket?  We look so pretty sitting there on the side of the tub of life.  We even hold all sorts of useful things. But hidden underneath is a dark rusty heart that no one sees.  We may not even know it's there ourselves.  Then the Lord brings the water of the spirit and as it washes over us, the rusty, dirty heart is made clean and new.  After I saw the mess it had caused I moved my little basket to higher ground where it will not rust again. A basket with a metal mesh bottom had no business on the side of a tub constantly exposed to water.  Often times, when we put ourselves in a place we are not fitted for, we risk allowing rust to build up on our hearts. We may continue on for quite a while and everything looks great on the outside, but deep down decay is setting in. 

My prayer this week is for the Lord to know my heart, to search out any places that have become rusty.  I want to re-evaluate my life and ensure I have not gotten myself into situations where I don't belong, places the Lord never sent me.  I don't want to be like the little basket with the metal mesh bottom.  I have enough to worry about with the size of my bottom, I don't need to worry about if it's rusty or not!

So, until next time, I'll be here, unbubbled, but, hopefully, rust free. 


Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor