Washed Clean
I was standing on the front door step looking up at my mother. I was covered in wet slimy mud from head to foot. Cold and uncomfortable, I wanted to go inside and get the mud off of me.
Mother, on the other hand, was not about to let me into the house in my current condition.
She took my hand and led me around to the lawn and instructed me to wait. It wasn’t long before she had the garden hose ready to give me a good rinsing. I stood, cold and wet, as she completed the job and shivered as she once again took my hand and lead me to the front door step where she went to get a warm towel to dry my wet body before I was allowed to enter the house. Following a warm bath I felt clean and acceptable again, but with a new lesson about staying away from things that can make a person unclean.
My two friends and I had been playing in the field behind the house where my two best friends lived. It had recently rained and the irrigation ditches were wet and filled with small puddles of water. My friends and I were wearing our overshoes and found the small pools of water too hard to resist.
Standing in the puddles and stomping up and down with our overshoes made a glorious mud pit that squished and mushed each time we lifted a foot. Soon we had a large puddle of slimy wet mud that was almost as deep as our overshoes would permit without going over the top.
I was always looking for additional fun so I wanted more. I determined that if I could get some of the dirt from the edges of the ditch into the mud I could make the puddle larger and deeper.
I found a large sage brush that was hanging over the edge of the ditch and grabbing onto it, I commenced to stomp my feet up and down higher on the side of the ditch while anchoring my weight with the bush. I did not anticipate that the sage brush was not strong enough to hold the weight of my body until it was too late. Suddenly I found myself lying on my back in deep mud that was oozing up around me. My friends stood staring, not knowing what to do.
In an effort to get up, it was necessary for me to turn over and in so doing I became completely covered with exception of my face. I did not know what to do either. My fun had suddenly turned to a horrifying realization that I had made a mistake and my desire to go beyond what I knew to be safe had put me into a distressing situation.
I slowly climbed out of the ditch and with effort walked across the field to go home. Each step was filled with regret that I had not realized that I had made a bad choice and now was suffering the consequences. By the time I got home I was cold and shivering. I opened the door and called for mother.
A lesson such as this one early in life, I believe, has saved me from mistakes that could have otherwise made my life more difficult. Mother taught us that we should always stay well away from any situation that would cause us to sin. We should never think that we can disobey some of the Lord’s commandments without getting dirty. It is not possible to avoid the consequences of sin when we ignore the signs along the way which tell us that we are getting too close to the edge. Before we know it things will get out of our control and we will suffer or become unclean.
The marvelous thing about the gospel is that Jesus Christ, the Savior, is able to take the hose to us and clean us off so that we are able to enter his presence once again. This however, requires a repentant heart and a desire to change our lives to meet his standards. The process is neither pleasant nor comfortable and may take time to get us completely clean.
Years later, my mother, in an effort to teach her grandchildren this same lesson planned an activity where we hiked up a hill in Moapa, Nevada to the top of a flat plateau. The plateau was topped with cliffs almost entirely around it that were 30 to 40 feet high. Once we were all on top she taught us the lesson to never walk too close to the edge of the cliff. This is like keeping ourselves in the path the Lord wants us to follow to avoid the chance of getting too close to the edge and falling. It seems to be a natural thing for us to feel like we can walk close to the edge and nothing bad will happen to us, however, as my story shows, if we are not completely in the Lord’s path we may fall.
My greatest desire in this life is that I and my family will all stay clean so that we can all enter our heavenly father's home and experience the warm associations of being clean for eternity.
They left for home on Sunday after a fun visit and Kathy and I spent the rest of the week having fun by ourselves.
