I had to clean my dishwasher today. If you have never undertaken this task, count yourself lucky. It is a dirty, back-breaking, thankless chore that always takes longer than I think it will (or should) and usually ends with near-cussing, especially when I realize that--once again--I put the longest screws in the wrong place only after having ratcheted them completely into place.
(You are asking two questions. 1) If you put the screws in wrong each time, why don't you use a system to remember which goes where? 2) How do you even get the long screws into the short screw slots? The answer to the first: I do use a system . . . I just forget what it was after two hours of scrunching, suctioning, swiping, and sweating. To the second, I don't know. I ask myself the same thing every time.)
Because I detest cleaning the dishwasher, I do it as infrequently as possible. Unfortunately, my dishwasher is old. How old, I don't know. Suffice it to say it looked old when we bought the house 7 years ago . . . and they left it behind, so what does that tell you?
Anyway, for the past couple years I have been taking it apart every few months because yuckiness starts to show up in cracks and crevices. I had just been bragging to my sister that I haven't had to do the dirty deed since I switched from liquid detergent to packs when I awoke one morning to half-clean dishes and a half-dissolved pack. (Pride goeth before a fall. She who laughs first laughs last. Etc.)
Hmmm.
I hoped it was a fluke and tried again. Same result. Bummer. Then this morning there was a dishpan's worth of water sitting in the drum. Blah. Couldn't avoid it any more.
Funny thing about this time: the dishwasher LOOKED spotless. Even when I pulled it apart it was weird. The tops and sides of the pieces were pristine, but underneath . . . what a nightmare. Goopy. Sticky. Hairy. (You recall my two shaggy dogs, right?!) I dug out a chopped walnut, the plastic tab from inside a child's water bottle (no wonder it leaks everywhere!), and all kinds of other flotsam and jetsam.
I also scraped a layer of white scale from inside the trap. Is that soap scum buildup? Is it the soft plastic finally decomposing with every rinse? I don't know. I'm not sure I want to.
As I squandered nap time on appliance maintenance, I started thinking how much I am like my dishwasher. The outside always gives a better impression than the inside. That's a little scary considering how much dirt I expose in my blog posts, but the truth is that even in my honesty I choose what to be honest about.
I don't lie in posts . . . or in person, to the best of my knowledge. But I am not above selectively omitting the things that show my darkest sides and strategically showcasing the things I wish represented my whole being.
Admit it. You do it too.
Perhaps we need to. Perhaps neither we ourselves or those around us are capable of handling the worst of our grime.
But there is Someone who is.
My kids are not able to rip apart the dishwasher, face the true disgustingness within, clean it out, and put it back together so that it runs well again. But I can.
As for me, there are many people who are loving me and helping me along this journey, without whom I shudder to think where I would be. But none of them is able to take me apart, clean out the garbage, repair the crimped hoses, and put me back together so I work better than before.
Only God can do that. Only God can do that for you, too.
I wonder if sometimes God feels like I do crammed into my dishwasher: Why can't you just stay clean??????
On one level, I think He does. I think of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem: How I have longed to take you under my wing as a hen with her chicks, but you would not have it.
On another, not at all. He knows I am but dust. He expects it to cling to me from time to time. And He is already living in the day when I will be spotless like the Lamb . . . I can't wait!
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