Serving

Recently I had house guests. Two male guests. During their stay I passed the commode in "the other bathroom" a few times and I watched it get a little dirtier and a little dirtier. Day by day as they used the facilities a new stain would appear or an obvious miss would catch my eye. I kept thinking, how hard can it be to ring the bowl for crying out loud? (For crying out loud is how I cuss since the Spirit started cleaning up my language.) It wasn't too unbearable because I had the master bathroom to myself and it was staying clean. Yep, spotless. You could eat off the.... well you get the picture.

On my second mission trip, the one to Mexico, I roomed with "Oscar". I was so completely "Felix". All my shirts folded and put into the drawers. Shoes (with shoetrees) lined up neatly in the closet. His opened suitcase stayed in the corner of the room for the whole week with clothing seemingly trying to escape the mayhem. I saw not even a sock folded! He actually left a pair of boxers on the window sill of our bathroom. Just laying up there like that was perfectly normal. With the window opened other Christian missionaries could walk by and see them laying up there like some sort of white trash flag. Nevertheless, in the evening when we talked and got to know one another and prayed for each other before turning in I realized I loved this messy dude. We joked about my neatness bordering on obsessive compulsiveness and his desire to basically live like a pig. (Well, that's how I remember it.) But you know, I would go anywhere with this friend and serve alongside him with joy. I never laughed harder than I did that week living with someone so different from me.

One Sunday morning after these recent guests had gotten dressed for worship I had a few minutes available and thought why don't I clean that commode in the "other bathroom?" Clearly it's something they cannot undertake, for whatever reason. I longed for Playtex Living gloves, those kind that go almost to your elbow - no chance of any wayward germ or jumping virus ever touching your skin. I went to my van and found an old pair of exam gloves we're supposed to keep for when we're working with kids that have infectious diseases. As they had been in there awhile they ripped to pieces as soon as I put them on. Alas, there was no way out. I had to tackle this unprotected.

As I was cleaning the commode and wondering why I had to stoop to do this and why they couldn't be cleaner I remembered my Lord. He took a basin and a towel and washed his disciples feet. Dirty, nasty, smelly feet. He touched them with his hands as he washed them one by one. God spoke to my heart, "this is what it means to serve." I smiled. Tears filled my eyes as I thought how backwards I have it most of the time. I did a good job.