There was a homeless woman, covered in rags, lying in a
doorway. Her coat was covered in dirt from the places she had been, and her
hands bore the grime from the garbage she had dug through that day. The stench
that could be smelled in passing told of the life that she daily lived.
A man walked by, but then paused and took pity on her. He
asked to take her to get a bath, and offered to buy her new clothes. Once she
was fully clean, he presented her with a new white coat. She was touched at his
kindness, took the gifts she had received, and then went back to the life she
knew.
It was the only life she had ever known, so she continued to
lay on the ground and dig through the garbage day in and day out. Of course in
an environment like this, the coat was soon torn and stained. The man came by
again, saw what she had done, and took pity again. He took her, once again,
paid for her to take a bath, and had her clothes cleaned. Then she went on her
way once again.
This time, she decided, that she would take extra care of
her clean coat. She safely tucked it in the bottom of her shopping cart, under
all her other things. She thought to herself “it will surely be safe here.” She
wanted so much to keep the filthy from polluting what the man had so kindly
washed for her. But the sacks that she had placed in the cart were old, filled
with rotten garbage, and leaked on the white coat, and soon it was stained
again.
The man came by once more, because he constantly wondered
about her welfare. He found her crying with her stained coat in her arms. She
thought that he would be angry with her, that he would scold her for being
negligent, but his eyes were filled with pity as he told her it was alright- he
knew a way that would make her clean and keep her from getting stains again.
She followed behind him with her shopping cart for a long
while. The trip wouldn’t have been
possible had she not been determined, and accepted the man’s help. After a long
while they came to the foot of the cross. He stood back, and she understood that
what she had to do now was her own choice. She knew this was the only way to
live a new life. So she began taking out the garbage bags one by one and
setting them at the foot of the cross, until the cart only held her stained
white coat. Then she stripped off the ragged clothes she wore and laid them at
the foot of the cross with the garbage bags. Finally she took out the stain
clothes and held it in her arms as she collapsed at the cross. The moment she
lay down everything she had the blood of Christ came down and washed over her.
Never again would these old garbage bags stain her again, she left them there
at the foot of the cross.
I am the woman in the white coat.
I told my teammate Heather last month that one word I would
never describe myself as was “pure.” I explained that though I knew that God
had forgiven me of my sins, it was just figurative. No one (including myself)
would buy it if I told them I was pure. I lost my virginity long ago, and
everyone knows that’s just something you can’t get back. So “pure” was just
something that I could never be. God was determined to show me otherwise.
Last night God gave this vision to me, and helped me to
understand that the old sin I was still carrying was continuing to pollute my
spirit and weigh me down. I realized the woman huddled in the rags on the
ground was me. God showed me last night that if I’d only leave this old garbage,
that I thought I had thrown away, at the cross I can walk in the white coat He
intended for me. I had accepted that those old sins were just part of who I am,
but God apparently thinks otherwise. I cried when I saw myself setting down
those nasty bags at the foot of the cross, and cried out that all I had to
offer was garbage. And God spoke to me:
“I died to take your garbage”
Praise Jesus, I’m pure.
