Easter, Vomit, and The Father's Love

So, Easter night was very interesting one at my house. If you're squeamish, you may not want to read on...

We spent our day celebrating like anyone else; going to church, visiting with family, eating a big dinner, finding eggs and eating candy. My kids got a lot of candy that day. We tried to limit how much they ate, but my oldest son Jonah has learned to eat first and ask about it later. At two years old, this young man's day was filled with eating strange things (for him) at dinner time and then munching on all the sweets he could get his hands on.

Of course, you know what this led to. At 2:00 AM Monday morning, I woke up to him crying in his room. As I stepped in, I knew by the smell that something terrible had happened. My little boy had thrown up on his pillow. I don't think he was really awake at the time, but he was sitting up in his bed and pointing to the dark spot where his head was. At this point, I hadn't turned the lights on, I didn't know how serious of a mess this was.

I pulled him out of bed and stood him on the floor while I worked. Very carefully, I picked up his pillow and threw it over to the middle of the floor. Without thinking, I patted the mattress where the pillow was to see if I needed to change his sheet. (Like I said, I had no idea just how bad this was.) As I did that, I ended up placing my right hand in a puddle of vomit! Ugh!

I slowly pulled the sheet off his mattress, rolled it up to trap the mess, and threw it over on the floor by the pillow. I carefully checked his blanket, and sure enough, there was a small damp spot on it. Realizing it was dirty as well, I added it to the pile on the floor. After that, I wiped down his bare mattress (using the only thing I could reach...a dirty shirt from his laundry) and quickly put a clean sheet on it. With a different blanket and pillow in place, Jonah's bed was ready for him to get back in.

For the few minutes I was working on his bed, he just stood there watching me. I really think he was sleeping the whole time, with no idea what was going on. When I went over to him, I reached out to put him in bed, and placed my left hand into more vomit on his shirt! It broke my heart that he had been standing there with a soiled shirt the whole time I was working on his bed. I eased the shirt over his head, careful not to get any on his face or in his hair. I threw the shirt into the growing pile on the floor, wiped him down, and put him back in bed. He quickly rolled on his side and went to sleep, completely cleaned from all that mess.

Unfortunately, I still wasn't done yet...

When I started picking up the soiled bedding from the floor, I realized how bad of an idea it was to pile it all together. The pillow that I had thrown down first literally had a vomit "pool" on it that I didn't know about. So when the pillow hit the ground, it splattered all over the floor. Then I threw the sheet and blanket on top of that while I was cleaning the bed. You can imagine what happened when I tried to pick it all up...I can't keep going about that, my stomach's turning just thinking about it!

Let me jump ahead to where I had all the laundry (including several more dirty shirts) in my hands and was about to leave the room. As I took my first step with my arms full, I stepped right into the puddle that fell from the pillow onto the carpet! I had to set the laundry back down on the floor to wipe off my foot...otherwise I would've tracked it through the house. Can you guess where I set the laundry? Right back on the puddle I just stepped it! (To be fair, I was really tired at the time...)

After that, I had to rinse out the laundry...there's no way it could go into the washing machine as it was. There I was at the bathroom sink with a towel around my nose, scrubbing the shirts, bed sheet and blanket. The pillow ended up getting thrown away...there was no saving it!

After that, I returned to his bedroom and started cleaning the carpet. I did my best to scrub the floor quietly, not wanting to wake him back up. Once I was sure the carpet was clean, I sprayed something for the smell. And just like that, it was as if nothing ever happened. 

When it was all over, I showered and got back in bed around 2:45...forty-five minutes after I first heard Jonah crying.

A Picture Of Love

There are a few morals to this story:

First, don't let your kids eat too much candy...

Second, don't try to clean up vomit in the dark...you're just going to make a bigger mess.

But when I got back into bed, I heard God speak to my heart about something much deeper. 

He said, "When you realized what had happened to Jonah, what was your first instinct?"

I answered, "I had to help him! I didn't want him laying in that mess."

Then He said, "So your first thought wasn't about how repulsive the vomit was? You didn't want to run away from the mess?"

That's when I saw it, I knew the point God was making.

I HATE vomit...just the sight or smell of it makes me want to throw up also! But when I went into the bedroom, my first thought wasn't about how much I hated the mess. No, my first thought was how much I wanted my son clean from it. And so, no matter how disgusted I got as I cleaned it up, I never hesitated. I did everything I could - I even got covered in that junk myself - just to get him back into a clean bed.

Brother, Sister....God HATES sin. It is just as repulsive and disgusting to Him as vomit is to me. But when we were lost in our own filth, our Father immediately came to help us! He was sickened at the sight of our sin, but He was not turned off from His love for us!

In fact, it was these two things working together that motivated God to rescue us. His disgust at the sight of our sin and His deep love for us spurred Him into action. There wasn't a second thought in His mind. He immediately came to help us!

Jesus bent down, into our sin and shame, and lifted us out. In love, He bore all of that filthy, disgusting sin on Himself. Why? Because He loved us, and wanted us to be clean! Look at what 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." On the cross, Jesus literally bore all of our sin. As much as He hated what we did, He had to get that sin off of us...His love compelled Him.

As I laid there in bed, I heard the Lord say, "I waded into your own mess to get you out of it. I was covered in the very thing I hate so you could be clean. In the same way that you heard Jonah and ran to him, I heard you crying and came running to help. But unlike you, I knew all along what I was getting Myself into. I had no other choice. There was no way My son could clean himself up, what else could I do?"

And now friends, I'm resting comfortably. I've been completely cleansed from my sin and shame...without an ounce of effort on my part. It's all been washed away...taken by the One who loved me. I'm free! I'm righteous! I'm clean!

This same rest - this same cleansing - is available to anyone who calls for it. Here's what you need to do:

1 - Stop saying "It's not that bad." Recognize that your sin is putrid; it's revolting to God!

2 - Understand that God loves you. As nasty as your sin is, God still sees you in all that mess. He'll come running to help, IF you will...

3 - Call to Him. God will wash you clean...if you ask Him to. But you have to turn to Him for help! This is exactly what Romans 10:13 says, "For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Don't you want to rest like this, completely cleaned up from your mess? Then call out to the One who will wash it away!