I've been doing a lot of ironing these past two days. Ironing, I found, is very therapeutic for me. I actually like to iron. I remember doing it as a young girl for my mom and when I started Junior High, my Home-
Ec teacher taught me some of the proper ways to iron.
As I was ironing I began thinking about how this wrinkled fabric compared to my inner self. I use a hot steam iron to remove unwanted wrinkles from, in this case, curtains. Holding the iron on the wrinkles while the hot steam penetrates the fabric does two things for me. One - it removes the wrinkle - in some cases almost completely. Two - the smell of the steamed fabric gives me a warm feeling inside.
The downside of ironing is that while it straightens and flattens the fabric, if you aren't careful you can make more of a mess than you started with. There have been times I have actually ironed wrinkles
into the fabric. And depending on the nature of the fabric, those wrinkles may become permanent. No amount of re-ironing will remove them. The heat has permanently set them in.
So how does this apply to me?
I am very wrinkled inside - in my spirit. I can "feel" these wrinkles. And just as wrinkles on fabric make it look dishevelled, so I feel dishevelled in my soul. The bad thing, or good, depending on how you look at it, is
I can't iron my soul, my spirit, my
inner self. I simply am not capable of such a task.
Just as fabric becomes wrinkled with normal use, so does my soul. It is life. It leaves wrinkles from the size of straight pens to the size of 2x4's on my heart. Most of the little wrinkles go unnoticed. But when the big ones pile on, I become "unsightly", especially to God.
He is the only One that can remove the wrinkles of my soul. His "iron" is far more powerful than mine and He is more cautious than me. He can remove any wrinkle, at any time. I just have to ask Him to "straighten" me out. And the best part is,
He doesn't, I repeat
doesn't, iron wrinkles
into me!
So, as I am ironing, I made it my purpose to ask God to reveal my wrinkles and iron them out. One by one or two by two. I don't care. Just hit me with that steam. And He obliged. The good thing is He is starting out slow and small. I have a lot of deep wrinkles and the little ones need to be taken care of first and then on to the mama-
jamas of them all.
The first wrinkle I felt smooth away - our employment situation. It may not resolve itself right away but my worrying isn't speeding up the process. I have a simple peace about it.
The second wrinkle - the rushed days and busyness of my mornings - how stressed I feel.
So to check on a sleeping child and see the peace on her face - with no worry of who cares for her or who loves her because it is something we freely give to her and she feels it - melts me. It stood as a reminder to me that God freely gives His love to all of us. He marvels in
our peace when we let Him. I felt the wrinkle of the stress and busyness smooth away as I stared at her. She is just a small representation of the love I have for my whole family - a love that I can't even describe sometimes.
I can feel the wrinkles subsiding. It will take some time, I'm sure. It may even take a long time, but most assuredly, I am being ironed!
