Have you ever wondered what the point of ironing clothes is? Clothes get crinkled even before you put them in the wardrobe or fold them to go in a drawer. If you wear them immediately after ironing, still, you find crinkles. That aside, there is the standing for hours, the back that complains for days afterwards, and, I believe that the stubborn clothes multiply themselves whilst in the basket to annoy me. By now you have probably guessed that ironing is not my favourite thing in the world. I do apologise to you if ironing is your favourite job to do around the house.

I am a “perfectionist”. It is hard to admit it, but I am. When I do the ironing I spend many hours making sure each stubborn crinkled line is smoothed and eventually disappears. I can, for a brief moment, look at the ironing board and smile before turning the garment around. Even that simple gesture creates yet another line across my freshly smoothed garment. Urgh! I can feel my blood boiling and my forehead frowning and I often will speak to the garment full of anger and rebuke the ironing board and even the iron itself. Now that I think about it, it must be quite amusing to my husband and children. They must think I am losing my mind. The truth is, frustration fills me completely because I know I will not be happy until all those old and new crinkles are removed and it just means I have to work longer and harder at it.

Let me tell you a story, something that happened a few years ago. Picture the scene, if you can, in your mind: I had been ironing some clothes and after a couple of hours stopped to take them to their owners. I handed a hand full of nicely folded clothes and nicely hung school shirts to my teenage children and asked them to carefully hang them and make sure they would be placed in the correct drawers. A quick “yes mum” was the reply I got, and I left with a smile on my face. An hour later I returned to the same children and gave them more clothes and as I glanced into their bedroom, to my horror, I saw that some of those clothes that I spent hours ironing were on the floor, all ruined as if a hurricane had just flung them everywhere. I cannot even remember what crossed my mind. I believe I cried, turned bright red on my face and walked away with the tears rolling down my face in total disbelief. How could they do that? Didn’t they realise I had spent hours on my feet smoothing those horrible fitted shirts and folding the other garments so carefully, making sure they wouldn’t crinkle too much in the process… how many times I had to refill the iron with water and start over and over until I was happy the clothes looked perfect… outrageous.

As I reflect about this distressing episode I can’t stop but think of how God uses the little (sometimes not so little) mundane things we do around the house to teach us great lessons and to humble us.

In many ways we, Christians are like clothes that need to be ironed. We have all been washed by the precious blood of the Jesus and in Him and through Him we are made perfect (Ephesians 1:7; John 3:16) Thank you Jesus. As we live in this world, we need to be reshaped, stretched, ironed so we can reflect the image of the One who created us. God has started a work in us (Philippians 1:6) and it is as if He has just placed us on that ironing board and has started to smooth each little corner of our hearts.

Some clothes are extremely crinkled because they dried up in the sun or were left at the bottom of the pile for too long and the creases are deep and difficult to iron out. Some are delicate. They hardly need any heat, but they need special attention. They need to be handled carefully on the ironing board and the temperature needs to be adjusted as it is smoothed out. Some garments are in the middle of these two descriptions – they need a bit of TLC and firmness and higher temperatures.

Our hearts are also like that. Some are hardened by time and struggles with sin, unbelief and love for this world. Some are fragile and have just been introduced to Jesus but are still unsure of who He is. And some hearts are suffering, struggling with sin but are not doubting God’s goodness. They are just tired and need to be looked after, encouraged and spurred on.

God knows exactly how each and every heart needs to be treated and “ironed out” so to speak. He knows each crinkle that needs to be smoothed and He knows what temperature to use for each type of irritating line that appears. At times, the lines are too deep and He will need to spray some “water” to make the iron glide more easily. He might need to lift the garment, shake a bit, place it back on the ironing board and apply some pressure on the iron to work on those stubborn “crinkles”. Sometimes He will adjust the temperature… more heat is needed or less heat in the most delicate, already bruised areas. We might look at the iron and wish it would not touch us and we focus on its heavy, hot, steamy surface and forget about the One holding it – He has a full picture of the piece of clothing laid on the board. He can see it all. He knows what we need in each and every situation we are facing in our lives.

Most of all, God is a very patient God. He does not give up on us, or shout in frustration when we insist on holding on to stubborn crinkles (or sin). He continues to work on each heart, all the time. Every second of every day and He will not stop until the day we meet up with Him.

_{Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash}