bleach.

if ya'll know me, you know that summer is by far my favorite season. you would also know that i fully intend on ushering it in all too soon before it is quite here. i am ready by march for lighter fabrics, white linens matched with nautical navies and stripes. so it was no surprise to me that the second nashville even considered warming up, i would don a pair of my favorite white h&m linen pants that i bought a few years back in Paris (when i was also trying to usher in spring/summertime all too soon, and it wound up snowing. i literally packed for 70s, and we froze our tail off at the expense of our stubbornness).

a few weeks ago, a group of us decided to go see our friend Quinn's photography on exhibit at a gallery as part of an art crawl downtown. as we walked up, he was outside, and we hadn't even been there thirty seconds when, as he reached over to give me a hug, his small plastic cup of red wine hit my elbow, and fell ... all over the front of my white pants. Quinn is one of the most gentle, sincere, down-to-earth people i know, and he was deeply regretful. i know he didn't do it on purpose by any means, and there was nothing i could do but brush it off and bear the wine-stain with pride (hey, it's totally art-deco).

at the end of the night, i got home and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed with stainstick. i then left the pants sitting in the basin full of detergent and bleach water overnight. when they came out of the washer in the morning, i was completely surprised that the stain was only faintly noticeable (i've even worn them since, and no one has said a word!). there's just a small amount of a darker off-white where the stain once was.

if you have any experience with doing laundry, you know that bleach can be your greatest friend, and greatest foe. it can brighten your whites, but they will never again have that "just-purchased" look.

so when i found myself singing this morning, i thought about how thankful i am that even the best and brightest whitening isn't enough when it comes to jesus:

Jesus paid it all;

all to Him i owe.

Sin had left a crimson stain;

He washed it white as snow.

i can't even wrap my head around the purity and integrity in the white that he has made us. that each blemish, each hint of stain, has been wiped clean from our ratty garments. we are free to be loved by a God that so greatly desires our worship and hearts that He not only cleansed our sins, He died for them.