Being a HIT and Mary Beth’s Sink
by warren powell
To begin with, you need a little history about me. I was widowed
until last March, then the Lord joined Mary Beth and I together into
one package….one wonderful marriage with Him. For the previous
couple of years, my habits around the house were, to say the least,
somewhere between helter-skelter and very organized….. depending
upon things such as the wind, time of day, how sleepy I was, if it
was raining, who was coming over.….all sorts of very valuable input.
When I became a HIT, my life began to change for the better. Oh
yeah, perhaps it would help if I shared with you what I am talking
about. A HIT stands for "Husband-in-Training." Please understand
being a HIT is a very positive thing, but definitely not a
one-semester course. It is a lifelong experience.….. for the
better….. and, when carefully studied, doing all the homework and
reviews….. and your notes….. and a lot of prayer….. it is always for
the best.
Having said that, let's get down to what this piece is about: Mary
Beth's sink. When we got married, we began living in Henderson,
Texas, in Mary Beth's home that her Mother and Father had lived in
for over
20 years. Although there is the 40-minute drive to Tyler Junior
College daily for our teaching jobs, any inconvenience at all is
minor compared to the many benefits of living away from the big city
life.
Mary Beth's sinks are very white. So white that when I moved there,
I often wondered how she kept them so clean and new looking. It
didn't take long for me to find out how she does it. A couple of
times I emptied my coffee cup into the sink, rinsed out the cup,
then placed it in the left side of the sink, to move it to the
dishwasher later. Mary Beth was very gentle in helping me to learn
to totally rinse out the sink also..…even to splashing water where
any wayward drops of coffee might have tried to cling on the walls
of the sink..…not just on the bottom of the sink.
She taught me that the longer any spots stay on the white porcelain,
the harder it is to get the stain off. Also, the more often I
forget, the more the forgetting becomes a habit and I get used to
seeing the stains….then I get so used to seeing the stains that they
become almost second-nature to being there….then they would not
bother me….. and after a while I would not care about washing them
off the sink. It's like it would become a circle of continual
staining.….rather than simply taking care to cleanse the sink as
often as I use it.
LaDonna Johnson once described to me a technique she used when she
had to clean her home in a hurry. She called it a Death Clean.
Before I got married that is what I usually used on my own sink and
home when someone was coming over. However, as a result of this
wonderful Husband-In-Training program, Mary Beth's sink stays very
clean….. without having to give it a Death Clean.
So a few days ago, as I was using the little sprayer in the sink to
dislodge some wild coffee spots, the Lord used the spots as the
little sins in my life……and the way in which I sometimes tend to
ignore little things in my own life that dot the landscape of my
everyday living….. things that I should simply take to Him as they
occur instead of wait until they pile up..…and I have to 'go heavily
to God', all burdened up. It is the daily time I spend with Him that
is the most important…... not the now and then Death Clean
equivalent time of breaking down before Him with a whole lot of
confessing to do.
His living water cleans the most determined spot of sin by the
washing of the word. His word….My participation….My confession….. My
repentance….. His forgiveness…His grace. What more is there? No
steel wool. No SOS pads. No toxic liquids. Just His love….daily
washing away my confessed sin.
Being a HIT is one of the many pleasures of my life. God is so good
to me.
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