Filthy Rags

I've got something so much on my mind, that I can't seem to do anything. So I guess I'll share it with you. Maybe someone else needs to hear it. Maybe just me. Last night as I was falling to sleep, a mental movie appeared in my head of a girl, maybe me, but black and white, sitting alone in a dark place, scrubbing and scrubbing the dirt off her arm--the once white cloth turning blacker and blacker. Then a voice said "Your righteousness is as filthy rags". I sat up in bed.

I've never given much thought to this verse in Isaiah. I just always took it to mean that even our very best is worthless compared to God's perfection. I still think that's true, but somehow this gives it new meaning, which may have been obvious before to everyone but me. I suddenly realized that rags don't get filthy on their own. They start out clean, but they get filthy by cleaning something that's filthy. In my head, this girl looked pretty clean--pretty sparkly white actually--but the rag she was using was filthy and kept getting filthier. And she could never stop scrubbing because she could never get clean. In a second, I bet she could hide that rag and make everyone think she was pretty white, but she knew and the voice knew where it was hidden. What I find hard to understand is why at some point, she decided that the clean garment she'd been given as a gift would make better rags and why scrubbing her arm alone in the dark seemed better than saying "Thank You" to the One who clothed her. I guess maybe it's because undeserved gifts are the hardest ones to accept, and those matching white garments always seem to look so much better on everyone else in the family.

Thank you friends and family for challenging me not to live in hiding. Thank you for being patient with me while God works on me. I love all of you.