One afternoon, not long after we moved into our house, I came home from work to this. My five year old and three year old standing out front covered in mud. Pure bliss on their faces. The rain had stopped. Yet it left its marks on the ground. And this mark was now all over them. Though I had no idea where they had found it, there they were.
Kaleb had mud in his hair. And pretty much everywhere else. Kylie had played a little more daintily with it and only had mud caked on her boots and hands.
I made them come in through the garage to not mess up the house. Smiling ear to ear. Probably thankful Eric was home and not me, because there is no way I would have let them play in the mud.
There is something about kids and mud. The gooey mess draws them in. It’s a wonderful, forbidden playground, unless you have a fun and adventurous dad that encourages you to jump in.
As an adult, most of us don’t like mud. We walk around it. Avoid it. And most definitely do not want it caked in our hair.
Yet sometimes. We end up in the mud. Not the kind of mud my kids were covered in that day. But an invisible mud that only we can see. Only we can feel. Only we know is there.
And this mud. Dark. Messy. Tacky. Can become caked all over us. Or even worse. We can become stuck in it. Sitting in the muck and mulch.
No one is immune to mud. No one is immune or so talented to tiptoe through it without getting messy. All of us have messy pieces of us. Pieces that clump together in a syrupy consistency. Or dry, holding us in place. Or even. Pulling us into the middle of the mush pot.
Yet. No one likes to talk about their mud. Their mess. We would all rather pretend we are put together and perfect and have a Snapchat-filtered-life instead of being who we are. Who we REALLY are. Dingy. Grimy. Broken at times. An honest to goodness muddy mess.
We can get muddy in a lot of ways. Playing in the mud. Thinking, just a little bit won’t get me that dirty. Being pushed into the mud. Never wanting to get messy in the first place. Or running full tilt into it, sliding as if it is a summer slip-n-slide. Regardless of how we get there. We are. Muddy. Messing. Mucky. And I think we would all agree. This is not where we want to be. Or maybe, even asked to be.
I have spent time covered in that invisible mud. Though I don’t want to admit it. I’ve tiptoed, ran into, and been pushed into it. I also did everything possible to hide the mud. If no one could see the real me, then no one could see the mud that covered me. No one would see it caked in my hair. Stuck to my boots. Covering my hands. Streaking my clothes.
The thing is. Mud doesn’t just go away. It doesn’t just magically disappear. Or fall off. It has to be removed. Wiped. Washed. Scrubbed. Off. Away. And this is not something we can do by ourselves. Just like my kids. Who needed help getting the mud off their hands and arms and out of their, his, hair. We need help.
A cliche and obvious choice would be Jesus. “Well, Jesus washes the mud off of us!” Done. Check and check. And yes. We most certainly need Jesus to wash the mud off of us. But there is more.
We need others.
Ouch.
But then that means someone will see. Will know. That my put together- perfect-Snapchat-filtered life. Really isn’t that. It is muddy. Messy. And there is absolutely no filter that can cover the muck.
We need people who have been there. Who have tiptoed or fell or jumped into their own mud. And got out and were cleaned and refreshed. By Jesus. AND. Others.
We need to be transparent. To those people. Our people. People who are safe. Who we can trust to pull us up and out. To help scrub and wash and clean. Who will hold the reasons behind the mud. Where it came from. How it covered and caked us. Safely. Gently. Lovingly.
And those of us. The ones whose mud has been carefully removed and cleaned and washed. We know. We know how valuable. How necessary. Our people were to us. To our healing. Those who weren’t afraid or disgusted by our mud. Who wrapped the towels around our hearts and hurts. Who hugged and prayed. Listened and encouraged.
The last few days. It has been raining. And there is a lot of mud. I came upon some of it as I was running on a trail. I ran around the mud, but then something caught my eye. The imprint. A shoe print. Brown goo pushed up with a small puddle in the middle. And I stared. I whispered a thank you. To those who chose to pull me from the mud. Who chose to hold and hug. Listen and love. Me through the cleaning process.
And it reminded me. Of the holy honor it is to reach out my hand to pull someone else out of the mud. To love and listen and hug and hold them through their mud cleaning process. To be someone’s person. To face the invisible mud. To not shy away or ignore. But to be that safe person. Be their person.
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