Jeff’s mom Becky found a bookshelf at the thrift store and brought it to us, knowing we needed something to house my teaching book collection. I decided that while Jeff was on a mission trip to Montana, I would refurbish it. I am not a painter, but I cleaned and spray-painted the shelves, and they turned out great, or at least I thought so until Eleah and I banged up our shins carrying the thing inside. What I couldn’t see outside in the sun were the splotches from the spray paint. I went back to the hardware store and got a paintbrush and white semi-gloss paint to complete the job. It turned out great for real this time. 

What I didn’t think through well was cleaning the paint brush. You really can’t clean oil-based paint out of a large paint brush the way that you do with art supplies. I ended up with a HUGE mess on my hands. They were white and sticky as could be. I spent at least fifteen minutes washing them with pumice soap and rubbing alcohol until I nearly passed out and gave up. Then, everything I touched turned white. I had no idea what a pain this would be! I decided to look up how to get oil-based paint off my hands – thank God for Google, seriously! The solution was mayonnaise. Since I had it in my fridge, I slopped it onto my hands, rubbed it in and let it sit for five minutes. Then I put some dish soap into my palm, rinsed and voila! The paint was gone. Just like that. 

It got me thinking about sin (the church word for the heavy weights of the world). We walk around with a sticky sin-mess all the time (trauma, pain, depression, news stories, anger, frustration, irritability, fear, hate, angst because of the haters…), and it’s so hard to know what to do with it or how to get it off us. There’s something mayonnaise-magical about applying Jesus, sitting with him for a while and then getting washed clean. I find that every time I am wandering from peace, I just need HIM. I just need my loving Jesus to soften me up and leave me in the state He intended for me. There’s nothing better than time with Jesus. That sounds a little too simple, but being with Jesus is actually as simple as it sounds. Just sit with him and let his presence surround you.

Lesson #2: Jesus is so good at loving us in the midst of our messes.