More Fabric Softener Please! :-)

I remember back in the late 70s when fabric softener sheets made their debut in our house.  My favorite brand became “Cling Free” right away because they were not made of perfumed paper but of spongy sheets. J  And of course they smelled oh so good.  I was hooked.  But as time passed, and not too much time I might add, the amount of product in the sheets decreased and also the fragrance did not last in your clothing as when the sheets first hit the market.  Yet the price did not reflect the decrease of product in the sheets.  Pas du tout.  I felt like I was being cheated so I switched to liquid fabric softeners, and I fell in love again.  Ah, love affairs.  LOL!! 

Well you know what happened there too because perhaps it has happened to you.  You find a fabric softener you like for the right price and all is well for a while.  Then new names pop up with new fragrances and you get the roving eye and nose, and gradually your favorite is not the only one you love. J  You now have multiple lovers in multiple colors, sizes, and shapes.  So you make your rounds, sometimes buying more than one at a time because there are just too many to settle for just one at a time.  Ahem.  Then the prices rise and the sizes shrink, and now it’s more economical to buy refill tubes.

So, with these tubes you are instructed as to how much water to mix with the concentrated liquid, which means you now control the strength of the product.  Hmmm.  Not a bad idea eh?  More softener please.  Maybe some people will take this to mean if they add more water than instructed they can make the liquid last longer, and you would be right.  But would the results be as satisfying?  Watered-down fabric softener makes for . . . You get the feeling don’t you?

On the other hand maybe some people would use less water in the mix thinking this will make the clothing softer.  This too may be correct, but of course the product will not last as long as it is supposed to and you will be refilling more often than you had planned.  Not really sure if it’s created to work best that way, but hey, not sure it would hurt either.  It’s your call bien sur. 

Well, I’m of the old school that if you’re going to read the instructions at all, you might as well follow them to the letter.  So I usually mix the right amount of water with the concentrate.  But I noticed that without the usage of a clothes dryer, air drying ones clothing, even when using fabric softener in the right amount does not always result in soft clothes.  This is absolutely no fun.  And en plus, where is the fragrance that caught my nose and desire causing me to two-time my previous fabric softener choice?  So I decided to add an extra cap or two of fabric softener, but then I forgot about it. 

While folding the towels I noticed that they were softer and I wondered how is this possible?  Then I had a duh-aha-voila-eureka moment.  I had added more fabric softener.  Hmmm.  And the fragrance was there too, which made my normal chore of folding clothes fun again.  Fabric softener truly can make washing, drying and folding clothes a fun passing of time.  It doesn’t have to be a boring chore, or a chore at all.  But something else happened while I was savoring the feeling and fragrance of clean clothing.  I heard Holy Spirit say “This is what YOU need, more softener in your soul.  It will change your character.”  Wow!!  Ouch too.  LOL!!  Talk about a eureka moment.

As I moved in closer to receive this great revelation from Holy Spirit, He said to me that time with Jesus, day in and day out is like adding fabric softener to the fabric of our characters.  The texture of me (and you) becomes changed and easier to “wear”, like lamb’s skin. J  You get the picture don’t you?  Romans 12:2 states,  “. . . be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” [Emphasis mine.]  Can you say “Transformer?”

I Corinthians 13:4-8 describes for us the many facets of God’s nature and personality – Love.  God IS Love, and Love is patient (God is patient), Love is kind (God is kind), Love is . . . etc.  Also Galatians 5:22-23 gives flavor to our Lord (“oh taste and see that the Lord is good”)[Psalm 34:8] calling His character traits “The Fruit of the Spirit”.  We know that we become like the ones we spend the most time with, whether we socialize with them in person, through books, through the internet and television, etc.  We take on the mannerisms of others and they take on our mannerisms too. 

You notice how two strangers can meet, spend some time together, fall in love and then marry.  Then after a few years they begin to look like each other, talk like one another, maybe even walk with the same gait especially if they have taken many long walks together.  They may even finish one another’s sentences or say the same things at the same time because they are thinking alike.  They can feel when the other one is upset or happy even when they’re not in the same room or city; Because their hearts have become one.  The textures of their personalities have become intertwined changing their original single way of being, creating a whole new tapestry, but yet somehow still maintaining their own uniqueness.  Yes, this is spiritual for sure.  Heart to heart, mind to mind, soul to soul. . .  And this is what God desires to have and be with us.  One.

I noticed that the more time I spend not just reading God’s Word but letting His Word read me, I see me like I’ve never seen me before. J  I begin to see me like God sees me, the good, the bad and the ugly.  The good He uses to encourage me that I am not a bad person and that He loves and accepts me just as I am, so when I see the bad I don’t become depressed.  And whoa when the ugly rears its ugly head that I don’t give up, throw in the towel and call it quits.  The Lord is not about just identifying what’s wrong with us, but He’s about revealing to us Himself in us, who and what we are to become in and through, and by and for His Son Jesus the Christ, the Ultimate Soul Fabric Softener.  See, when we are impatient and unkind to ourselves, we have really rough personalities.  We can smile all the time and say nice things in a sweet voice, but there is always an edge to our disposition which is cutting and biting, and sensitive people can sense it (and see the bite marks in our personality) and they may even move away from us in advance, because they don’t know when we might strike. 

When we are impatient and unkind to ourselves it means we lack . . . Love, Which is patient, Who is kind. . .  I know that’s kind of tight, but it’s right.  When we don’t exercise the Fruit of the Spirit towards our own selves (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, temperance) then we have not been very nice to ourselves, which means we will not know how to be nice to others.  We are “softless”.  J  Just rough not only around the edges, but throughout our entire personalities.  We can’t give to others what we don’t have. We cannot take others where we’ve not been.  We cannot teach others what we have not learned.  And we cannot give until we have received. 

God desires for His love to be a reality in our lives, not just an abstract principle we read on a bumper sticker or lapel pin, and not just something we say to people when we don’t know what to say, “God loves you.”  He wants us to know exactly what it means (feels, sounds, tastes, smells like) in our everyday reality and interactions first with ourselves, then with our families, friends, coworkers and the world beyond our world.  But this can only happen as we continually make time for Him as our priority 24-7.  He cannot be secondary and His Word cannot be an option. 

To be honest with you, I did not know how mean to oneself one really is when he or she is impatient.  Maybe we react impatiently towards others on a daily basis, but that means we’ve first been impatient with ourselves.  Life is so much more calm and peaceful now that I am exercising patience with myself (and eating the other Fruit too).  No more internal stress, less injuries, and the roses smell oh so nice. J  I didn’t have to water down the fabric softener to make it last longer because there’s a never ending supply from where that comes.  Jesus never runs out.  Neither did I have to use less water to get the softness I desire.  I can follow the instructions to the letter and still get what I need and want.  (And no static cling!!)  All I have to do is add more fabric softener, and enjoy the feeling being soft brings.  You can never add too much of the Ultimate Fabric Softener, Jesus Christ.  So go ahead, pour Him in and see what happens.  I’m sure you will love the results.

Peace.