Blue Lint, Smelly Jeans

 

This is complicated, but here I go: last Tuesday, I changed the transmission filter and fluid (8 quarts) in my old Buick.  I was installing the new gasket and needed a third hand.  Obviously, I don’t have a third hand, and in the midst of my struggling, I bumped the full drain pan (which was an old steel mixing bowl with a round bottom) and spilled the used transmission fluid on the concrete.  Oops.  And to add insult to injury, the fluid spill was uphill from me, and gravity washed it down under my back soaking my tee shirt and jeans with transmission fluid!  Oops again.  I washed them, but they still stank.  I washed them again, and they still stank.  After 4 washes, they were moderately recovered, over quarantine, and merged with normal dirty clothes (for the 5^th time).  But after the wash, I still detected a smell on my jeans.  With abundance of caution, I dried the 2 blankets (that had just been washed with the jeans and the tee shirt) by themselves to keep the stinky clothes separate.  But as I cleaned off the dryer filter, I found blue lint in the screen.  Being the detective that I am, I pondered my findings.  Neither blanket was blue, so obviously, the jeans had lintified my blankets in the washer.  Without noticing, the transmission fluid leeched onto my innocent blankets.  But the dryer had done its job and had removed the nasty lint from the blankets.  Hey, we as Christians are called by the dear Lord to be in the world, but not of the world.  We are to mingle with pagans while not being tainted by their wickedness.  We are called by God to rescue sinners from their sin.  Jude said it well in Jude 22&23, “And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.”