Scrubbing Soap Scum for Jesus

One Wednesday I woke up and scrubbed the bathroom. It was the start of an amazing day from God. 

I live in the Wyoming desert.  Rock Springs is one of a pair of twin communities almost a 100 miles of highway away the next town.  We have the hardest water of anywhere I have ever lived. I would like to write, “I am constantly battling soap scum,”  but it’s more like soap scum is constantly winning battles I forgot to show up for.  But this Wednesday, I made a bottle full of the “magic” soap scum cure (Dawn and vinegar) and went to work. 

When the bathrooms were positively sparkling and my husband had fled the house for the smell, I went on doing my normal Wednesday chores.   Hours later sitting exhausted in my pew from my long day, I glanced over to see a stranger sliding into the back pew.  He had sad look and a duffel bag that had seen some wear.  My husband greeted him from the front, “Hey Mike!”

All the pieces clicked.  Last summer while I was away with the girls, my husband had a guest.  He spent the week with a hitchhiker who travels the West painting.  Mike slept at the building, split the grocery bill with my husband, and pulling his brushes from his duffel, painted our church building and sign.  His wife was dying of cancer and he was dying inside.  He had been a traveling painter for years but this summer was different. 

We were expecting a friend for dinner after church and so I whispered in my husband’s ear on the way out the door that one more would make no difference and headed home to finish-up some gumbo.

Before long we were all sitting around the kitchen table stuffed. Mike pulled out his bag of Snickers told us about the family crisis that had brought him our way again. And we prayed together for the Spirit to use him in His power to change the situation.  Standing he said, “Can I use your bathroom to clean up?  I sat on a rotten banana.”

That morning in Nebraska he had picked up a ride with a trucker from Arkansas and had suffered this stinky banana all the way to Rock Springs. I asked if he had clothes to change into and he asked if he could shower. 

And guess what?

My shower was clean and soap scum free. 

My daughter and I ran a load of laundry and Mike slept on our couch awaiting the trucker to pick him up to ride on to the next state.  That was my Wednesday.  

Of all the wonderful stories Mike told, I relished the ones about how he was used by God.  He told about the drug addict who picked him up on the way to a half-way house.  By the time they were 90% there, Mike was googling and calling ahead looking for a church with a baptistry because this man was ready to have his sins washed away NOW!  (They found one!)  He told us the story of going down to a hotel pool to baptize a maid only to have an elderly gentleman say,  “I was at a Billy Graham crusade one time and I knew that I should make my life right with the Lord but I didn’t.  I want to do it now.  Will you baptize me too?”  Who could turn down an offer like that?

I am not being called by God to paint houses, or hitchhike, or to do the kind of ride-along preaching that Mike does.  However, I am called to be faithful to whatever good work God puts in my hand to do today.  Including scrub off soap scum because there might be a highway minister who sat on a banana or make gumbo because I might have unexpected company. And I am always called to share the gospel with everyone who will listen.  Mike’s prayer, “Lord just use me today” can and should be yours and mine.  Who knows what might happen?  

Helene