Cleaning up a Sticky Situation

"There's jelly in my hair!"

This is something I'd expect to hear from my three-year-old, so hearing it come out of MY mouth was a little surreal. In fact, I'm not even sure how the jelly got in my hair. I mean, I did make my hubs a PB&J that morning, but our jelly is the squeeze type; not something I'd even get near my locks. But there it was. A sticky, gooey, mess of strawberry jelly tangling up my hair.

For ease, I'm going to pretend this happened to my daughter. 'Cause, you know, it's kind of embarrassing for a 33-year-old-woman to walk around with head full of jelly. Any way...So if my daughter comes to me with a tangled mess of stickiness in her golden tresses, the first thing we do is try to brush it out. She screams and fights and wiggles until we realize we need help.

Out comes the handy dandy detangler I spray the affected area and attempt to brush some more. It doesn't take the jelly out, but it makes it presentable enough to rush her off to pre-school. (because we're late...since someone got jelly in her hair.)

By the time she gets home, the hair is a rat's nest again and the only recourse is to wash it out. Slowly I can see the shampoo doing it's job and cleansing her hair of the offending sticky stuff. Once she's washed clean, her hair is like new.



A shower is the ONLY way
to get jelly out of these locks

Sometimes our life is like jelly in the hair. We have sticky situations we're not proud of, but there they are, tangling things up and making a big ole' mess. We try to take care of it ourselves and spot treat it with a little help (alcohol, shopping, food. Whatever makes the pain go away and whatever makes us look presentable)

My sticky situation was the decision to exercise the "right to choose" when I was 18. I cleaned myself up and looked presentable to the outside world, but on the inside I was still all messy. After fighting and attempting to do it on my own, I finally accepted help through my local crisis pregnancy center. I went through a program called HEART (Healing the Effects of Abortion Related Trauma). But it was only when I was showered by the blood of Jesus and accepted God's forgiveness for what I had done did I become truly clean. He washed me clean of my sin and has made me like new. I can't change what's been done but I don't have to go back to the rat's nest in which I'd been.

Are you in need of a good shower? Is there any "jelly" that you've been hiding for too long? Take it to your Father for a good scrub down.

When I rush my daughter to school with sticky stuff in her hair, I, as her parent, know it's there. I know she's a little less than clean, and I love her anyway. But I know she has to have a bath. In his book Just Like Jesus,  Max Lucado writes, "God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way..." God knows what mess you're hiding. He's always known, but He refuses to leave you a mess. It doesn't mean He loves you any less or judges you any more. He wants to cleanse you of the stickiness and gooeyness. He wants to make you shining and new.

Will you let Him?


(Are you in need of post-abortion counseling? The Rachel Project is a good place to start)