Meanmomma's Washing Kettle

I've spent a great deal of time trying to think of a name for my blog site. I wanted something timeless, unique and simple; something much like Erma Bombeck's "At Wits End". I'm just not that clever. I began to look for inspiration around my house since my articles are about everyday life and events and I came to focus on my grandmother's washing kettle. It is one of my favorite possessions.
There were MANY years that this kettle was used for more than just cleaning clothes for her family of eight. But by the time I came to know the kettle, modern technology had replaced all of its uses and it rested on her lawn filled with flowers through the summer. When my grandmother passed, my mother took the kettle to her home and it was again filled with flowers. For the past four years now, it has been my turn to fill the kettle. I enjoy planning what to put in it every spring, which always includes something to cascade over its thick, dark sides and something to rise up tall at the center. But this entry really isn't about the kettle's life today.
I imagine you have heard the old saying, 'it'll all come out in the wash.' The kettle reminded me of that phrase and how my grandmother likely worked and struggled to remove the evidence of hard farming chores out of their clothes. And then I thought about how Christ's blood removes the stains and soil of sin from our lives everyday. And furthermore, how the scriptures wash over and connect to our everyday lives and events to lead us back to the foot of the cross.
I hope that as you read my stories and the scriptures that make these connections for me, you will find inspiration and be reminded that there is a Heavenly Father who seeks to fill you with a faith that will rise up tall and a love that will cascade over your life and bloom over the thick, dark sides of it. And may your life be lived, 'in the wash.'
"But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life." Titus 3:4-7