Sins Like Hot Tamale Orange

Yesterday, I almost called Bridgette home from swimming at a friend's across the street to clean up her mess on the table. She had left her magazine, fingernail polish and remover there on the kitchen table. I had told her to clean up her mess before she went swimming but her preteen brain gets so over-excited when an invitation comes along to do something fun lately, all other instructions from her mom fly out her ear, it seems.

Well, the urge to call her home was replaced by a tugging at my heart. I was that age once, and I wished I had the nice friends she had. She's usually pretty responsible. So, I grabbed the polish and and remover and headed to the bathroom to put them away for her - my good deed for the day. Little did I know, my little absent minded sweetie did not screw on the cap to the Hot Tamale Orange (almost red) finger nail polish, so as I swung my arms, the bottle flew - uncapped - and spattered in an elongated circle about three feet long across our beige carpeting, a few spatters up the woodwork and onto our white wall. Hot tamale orange. Let's just say my warm feelings for my daughter changed in an instant and this became "her fault." (Even though I didn't check to see that the cap was screwed on.)

I ran to the computer and googled recipes to take up fingernail polish from beige carpeting. (I'm SO GLAD we don't have brown carpeting or red carpeting - we can bleach out the color a bit and eventually it will just get as dirty as the rest and nobody will notice!) I eventually cooled down, and accepted half the responsibility for the accident - which, I did also eventually admit it was - and most of that happened BEFORE Bridgette made it home THANK GOD! My attitude when it first happened was pretty off...but, in all honesty probably not much different than the majority of moms out there, if they were all being honest. :)

But, as I was scrubbing with Oxy-Clean, fingernail polish remover, Windex and Shaving Cream (FYI - in case you ever need this "potion"...scrub with each individually with a scrub brush, rinse with warm water and then sop up with an old towel. Repeat until you have no strength left in your body, or until stain is gone - which ever comes first.), I was reminded how impossible it seemed to get out this bright color. The Bible says our sins are like that - like scarlet. I can imagine me being as disgusted with my sins as I am with this Hot Tamale finger nail polish - I am embarrassed that somebody will come to visit and see this on my beige carpeting. What will they think? Just like my sin; I don't want you to see that, either! God sees our sins as plainly as you could see Hot Tamale on beige carpeting last night. But Jesus died for us - and that is the only remedy that washes our sins as white as snow.

Last night, after scrubbing for a ridiculous amount of time, I was wishing that there was something that would wash that stain out like my little "accident" had never happened. You can still see a little evidence, if you look for it. But you know what? Part of the carpeting that we scrubbed and scrubbed for HOURS and HOURS last night IS white as snow this morning!

The only trouble is, the rest of our carpet is beige. Sigh.