The Pressure Washer

My husband had borrowed a pressure washer from a friend and when he had finished using it, loaded it in the back of his SUV. A few weeks later, I borrowed his truck and realized the pressure washer was still riding in the back, smiling at me. Great.

I was out running errands so decided to return the thing. I called my husband and said, “Please give me John’s number so I can see if he’s home and return the washer.” “No, I’ll return it later.” “No you won’t…it’s been in your truck now for weeks and you haven’t returned it.” “Yes, I will and it has not been weeks.” “No, you won’t….please give me the number.” “Fine.” “Fine.”

Called John. No answer. “Dang.”

I’d pulled over while I called him so since he wasn’t home, I did a u turn and whipped the truck around to just go home. WHAM. The pressure washer turned over! I uttered a disgusted, "Holy cow," then started smelling gas.

I’d come to our county road and had 6 miles to go so decided to pull over and set the washer upright so it wouldn’t leak gas all over the back of the truck. I popped open the hatch and the thing FELL OUT!

“OH MY GOSH!!!”

It was way too heavy to pick up so I had to call my husband. All I could get out though was, “Honey?” and then I started laughing hysterically. I mean how funny can it be to be sitting by the side of a county road with the hatch up and a pressure washer laying on the ground with the hoses hanging out of the back of your truck? Not that funny! I don’t know what turned over inside me but I could not stop laughing! All that would come out was an occasional word or wheeze…but enough strung together for him to get the picture. He…was…not…happy and he did not have a car. It was in the shop.

A neighbor bailed me out, loaded it up for me and I came home to a hot husband. He’s cute but hot here has a whole other meaning.

“So where is it?”

Since a real stronghold in my life has been a smart mouth, all sorts of choice remarks whizzed through my brain like, “On the roof.” Like where do you think it is? Kind of like when you ask your husband to put your 4 year old son in the tub and give him a bath after he’s played outside all day and the man looks right at you and very sincerely asks, “Does he need it?”

My husband gave me a short speech on my mouth, my snotty, “cute” responses to his questions, my attitude. I think he covered it all. He’s very precise, pointed, a man of few words. And right. Sad to say, right. I know when to keep my mouth shut and nod. Smart woman.

I usually pray early in the mornings but the next day really nothing would come. All that came to mind was 1 Corinthians 13. That was not what I wanted to hear.

By the next day, I wanted the silence to end, something else to play in my head besides 1 Corinthians 13 and knew the ball was in my court. God wasn’t mad. He is holy. There was sin in my life. It needed to be dealt with to restore fellowship. So I prayed, “You’re right. I’m wrong. I am sorry. Please forgive me for my smart, snotty mouth. I need to make this a permanent change. I need to think before I speak, weigh my words and screen them by the verses you’ve been playing in my brain. I will make it right with my sweetheart as well.”

Restored.

The jist of 1 Corinthians 13 is that you can speak in the languages of heaven and earth, know prophecy, everything that is going to happen in the future, give all you have to the poor, do some incredible things, but if you are not loving, it profits you or anyone else…nothing.

And love looks like this……” Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.

Love does not demand its own way.

Love is not irritable and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged.

It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance.”

Can I do that by myself? Is that me? Am I naturally like that? Nope. Not even a little bit.

But if God’s whole goal is to bring me close to him on a moment by moment basis so I begin to reflect him, look like him, then this is who he is, what he looks like! He loves just like this. If he lives inside me, this is what people should see, not because I determine to be this way and try real hard, but because I am so close to him, I take on his characteristics.

That’s what I want. That is so incredibly attractive…as a wife, as a mom, as a friend, as a daughter, as a sister. It doesn’t squelch who I am. It just softens me, tempering who I am with love.

I finished praying and opened the Bible that I read as a devotional. It’s divided up into an Old Testament and New Testament reading , a psalm and a proverb for each day of the year. Want to guess what the New Testament reading was for that day?

1 Corinthians 13. Almost fell out of my chair. It was God’s mighty “Amen!”