Spilled Paint

Over the years, we've accumulated a ridiculous amount of house paint. I get bored with spaces and paint is a quick, cheap, and easy way to transform a room. So, needless to say there's been a lot of painting.

In an effort to de-clutter our garage, I had the brilliant idea to rid our shelves of those old paint cans by bagging them in what I thought were heavy duty trash bags and standing them upright for transport. I put my plastic liner in the trunk of my car and loaded them up. After I ran out of room, I put the remaining 2 sacks, upright, in my backseat.

I stopped by a local donation center to drop some other items. The helpful man there accidentally grabbed one yellow bag from the trunk and one yellow bag from the back seat. I explained to him that the yellow bags stayed in the car, so he graciously put them back. Unaware that there were paint cans in the bags, he just kinda tossed the bags back into my car; and me being in a hurry (as usual) was none the wiser.

Fast forward to picking up the youngest son from daycare and seeing thick, white liquid oozing from the trunk of my car. I panicked. Immediately, I thought, "Darnell is going to kill me!" My youngest son waltzes into the family-owned daycare and announces my debacle. The owner, who happens to be my aunt, immediately comes outside with buckets of soapy water and old towels, as I grab a roll of paper towels. I start to try to sop the paint up with my paper towels when she says, "Move girl!" while throwing the entire bucket of water on my car, "You gotta move quicker than that or this stuff is gonna dry!" Two hours, 3 adults, countless buckets, and a water hose later, the paint was off my car...well most of it.

There was still a mess in the street and in the neighbors driveway, so I followed Auntie Nessa's advice and began dousing it with buckets of water. I watched as white and yellow painted thinned and ran down the street revealing the normal gray colored asphalt beneath. As the water ran down and mixed with the paint I noticed that there were some spots that would take a lot more time and a lot more water to get out. They had set in pretty good as we tended to the car, so the traces of paint remained as I loaded up the boys and headed home to face my fate!

The thought of the water washing away most of the paint made me think about the washing of my sins. There was ALOT of paint on that street, and I've committed and will continue to commit ALOT of sins. But I've been washed mostly clean. Even though Christ died on the cross for me and I know that. Even though I know right from wrong and the Word from the world, I still have those little bits of myself that are set. Those things that will take more time and more washing, over and over again to get clean. I was reminded of my humanness and His sovereignty. With one word, God could deliver me from everything and wash me completely clean, but he doesn't. He allows those remnants of me to stain myself so that I never forget how far I've come. So that I never forget who I was, who I am, and who I am still striving to be.

Everyone reading this has some parts of themselves that just won't go away. I talk too much. I am overly opinionated. I shop unnecessarily. I'm irresponsible with money. I'm late because I have little regard for start times. I still care way too much about what other people think of me. I do things that I shouldn't do or maybe don't even really want to do because I want to be accepted. Too often, I curse, espeically when I'm angry. Sometimes, I drink more than I should. I can be condescending and a friend of mine has even revealed that I can be passive aggressive. I reflect on my past and at times feel like I'm not good enough. I allow the generational curse of divorce in my family to cause me to doubt the survival of  my own marriage. I have a hard time trusting people, even the ones I know and love. I wish that everything on this list would just go away!

But like the paint on that street will always remind my aunt and her neighbors about the day of the great paint spill. Those remnants of our old selves in the midst of our transformed selves are reminders that we need God. They are also opportunities for us to witness and testify to one another. Even though we've been washed by the blood, God still leaves us little reminders, so we remember just how far He's brought us, and how much further we still have to go.