Back a year or so ago I wrote a post called “re-building walls” in which I told of how GOD used my co-workers as “Nehemiah” for me. Well, I have had further experiences, one most recent of which have come to show me the heavy construction that is taking place in my life in “Toxic Clean-up.”
Just as white eggs change color when dipped in food dye, so I change color when immersed in certain environments. The longer the egg sits in the dye the deeper the color gets. If there is a crack in the shell of a hard-boiled egg the white of the egg will show where the dye seeped through the crack, leaving a colored jagged line. Anyone my age or older will remember “Love Canal” and the emphasis put on cleaning up the Toxic Waste that had been dumped into the water. Here in Maine there are warnings about eating fresh water fish due to Mercury contents in the water. Maybe you’ve drawn the parallel and know where I’m going with this, but here are my thoughts.
My life is like the egg, I am colored by what I am immersed in. I am like the fish ingesting toxic materials from the water around me. Love Canal was contaminated by what others put into the water. But GOD has been using others to remove the toxic waste from me like the EPA did to the “Love Canal.” How does this happen since I have to live, work and interact with a variety of people everyday and if you haven’t noticed the world can be a pretty toxic place.
I remember as a kid coloring eggs for Easter. Inside the package was a clear wax crayon. If you drew a design with the crayon on the eggshell prior to dipping, the dye would not adhere to the design. I would write my name on the egg, draw flowers for spring and in later years I might draw a cross to signify Easter. My point here is I am marked with a holy crayon, so no matter how many different dyes I’m dipped in, the design placed upon me shows through.
Like the fish and the Love Canal, I can be purged of the toxins by not allowing others to dump into my life, and when they do I flush out my life with healthy, cleaner water. Sometimes the toxins are so deep in the soil, it takes an excavator to remove them and sometimes it just takes time and persistence to cleanse. This past weekend was a purging time. I met with new friends, went to play with old friends and went to church. Sometime on Saturday I came to sense the toxins leaving my system. Years of sitting in the same dye, breathing the same contaminated water and allowing other’s toxicity to permeate my soil was being purged!
I will not lie and tell you I will never fall into toxicity again, but I am learning tools to use to change my environment for the better. God forgive me, if I contaminate another, I would prefer to be fresh water or brightly colored dye enhancing someone’s egg. Oh and my EPA stands for “EVER PRAYING AGAINST.” Stay healthy my friends!
