That First Shower Feeling

Do you know that heavenly feeling of taking a shower and changing into new clothes when it's well overdue?

A couple of weeks ago I flew our two oldest kids down to see their grandparents. I literally, hopped on a plane with them, flew down to Charleston, SC, went out of security, hugged my mom and dad, went back through, and flew back to Boston. After a week with Gummy and Hoppy, I had to go back down and pick them up. This is when everything went wrong.

Flights got delayed and then canceled. When we finally got on a plane, we sat on the runway for two hours before taking off. While we were supposed to have a one-hour layover in Philadelphia, by the time we left Charleston, our plane in Philly was boarding. Once we landed it was after 10 PM and the airport was shut down. They let us book a new flight, but the earliest they had was 11 AM the next day.

I had two kids with me who were starving and the only restaurants open were outside of security. We had to leave the terminal, but I wasn't too keen on sleeping on the streets of Philadelphia. So, I found a cheap hotel fairly close by. I mistakenly read the Google reviews after booking. Bedbugs was one of the key descriptors. It was disgusting. It smelled like cat urine and weed. We didn't get in until after mid-night, but I couldn't sleep because I was sure that every itch was a bedbug (Thank God, no bed bugs!).

To top it all off, I had only brought enough clothes for one day and we were going on day three. By the time we got home, I hadn't properly showered in 48 hours and my clothes were scented with cat urine like a La Croix is flavored with strawberry. I immediately took a shower and changed my clothes. I went into that bathroom one person and came out of it a new man. That first shower after a long time without is highly underrated. It's like a top 10 feeling in the world.

Tomorrow we hear from Luke Manring on Ephesians 4. He's going to walk us through Paul's famous message about how following Jesus is like taking off old clothes and putting on new clothes. It's a bit like that first shower. Before Christ you're one person, but after you're completely new.

Luke is one of our GenSend students. He is a nursing student at Cedarville University, but God has also called him to be in ministry. He preaches regularly in his home church's student ministry. I have read over his manuscript, and it's going to be really helpful for everyone. Join us tomorrow at 10 AM for worship!