Lessons From a Weapon of Grass Destruction - Lynda S.

I'm painting. No need for Van Gogh, Picasso, or The Group of Seven to worry though; I'm painting my apartment. After the paint comes the decoration. I'm planning "The Farm" as a theme for one of my guest rooms, and that sent me searching for my dad's saw and scythe. To my distress both were badly rusted—the victims of the high humidity here in Venezuela. I needed some expert help.

My colleagues, Bevin and Janie Wray, are entertaining Janie's sister and her family over these two weeks. Calvin and Rita farm just outside Calgary and I was pretty certain that a farmer would know about rusty implements and how to fix them. Sure enough, Carl had an answer to my dilemma.

I soaked two towels in vinegar, wrapped one around the saw and the other around the scythe. Then I wrapped both tools in plastic wrap to keep the towels from drying out. By the time I got back to them later on that evening, it was obvious that something was working—I could see through the plastic wrap that the towels were brown! The smell, as I unwrapped the tools, was not pleasant, but the rust was gone just as Cal had told me that it would be.

It was a good thing that I chose old cleaning rags to do the job. Even though the towels went immediately into the wash, they will bear the marks of rust for the rest of their days.

There had to be a spiritual lesson in this little DIY project. I thought about my life, rusting with sin. Then Jesus came, like that vinegar-soaked towel, and wrapped me in His love and forgiveness. My sins, like those rust stains, He bore in His own body, removing them forever from mine.

However, unlike my old towels, the rust stains of sin were not just transferred, they were eradicated completely, washed clean in the blood of the Lamb of God, They simply ceased to exist.

Somehow, I suspect that every time I go into that particular guest room where dad's tools will be hung, I will never be able to look at his saw and scythe in the same way again. What do you think?