We’re still struggling with the pup that eats everything. How many stupid things has she eaten this week? I can hardly count. I can tell you that I fished a couple of AA batteries from her little doggie molars just yesterday morning. They must’ve charged her up because around lunch time she had another one of her ink pen cravings. I thought I had the pens all hidden, but she somehow found one. Before I caught her there were two catastrophic blue ink spots on my carpet. One was about quarter-sized, the other about a dime. Not that I’m used to interpreting ink spots or anything, but they looked very Dalmatian-like. And the big one was shaped remarkably like a profile of the Energizer Bunny—bass drum and everything. If a psychologist analyzed my interpretation, I wonder if he would tell me I have some deep-seated battery issues.

I ignored the psychological implications and went to work on the stain. I gathered a large supply of skin-irritating chemicals and scrubbed until my hands throbbed and felt twice their normal size. I stepped back to check my progress and found that the ink spots were twice their normal size, too. I had taken them from a quarter and a dime and combined them into one spot that equaled about forty-nine cents.

I gave it another ten minutes of elbow grease, then re-surveyed. How could extra scrubbing add to the forty-nine cents? What, elbow grease stains? It looked like I had added at least two more quarters and a dime. Man! I was at a dollar nine and climbing. I figured it was time to give it up and call in the professionals for some of the industrial strength stuff.

Trying to make spiritual stains go away on our own is even more futile. When we try to work out our sin stains with our own elbow grease, we end up with an even bigger mess. We need to call in THE Professional. The blood of Jesus is the one true stain remover. David said in Psalm 51, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:1-2, 7, NIV).

Through his unfailing love we’ve been given the most thorough blotting washing, cleansing, possible. The Amplified Bible gives us the spiritual industrial strength formula in 1 John 1:9: “If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just (true to His own nature and promises) and will forgive our sins [dismiss our lawlessness] and [continuously] cleanse us from all unrighteousness [everything not in conformity to His will in purpose, thought, and action].”

So let’s leave all the heart-scrubbing to Jesus. He is full of compassion and he is ever-faithful.

Besides that, he’s never stumped when trying to interpret any incidental psycho-battery issues.

Rhonda Rhea rrhea@juno.com