Clean

The summer following my college graduation was a waiting game – literally. I’m going to date myself, but back in 1996 when I graduated from University of Virginia with an AFROTC scholarship (Yes, shameless plug for one of the top 25 institutions in the county that just happens to be public.  There may be one or two more.), some of the armed services let nurses come on active duty before passing the nursing boards (NCLEX), and just used the not-yet-board-certified nurses however they could. But that didn’t suit the Air Force’s legendary style. No, no, no, not at all.  So, my waiting comprised of teaching 2 and 3 year olds at a local day care (Best job I’ve ever had.).

The AF prided itself on being and having that sweet cream skimmed off the top – the best of everything. I even know someone who failed the boards the first time, and the AF made him wait 4 more months until he could take the boards again and pass.(By the way, he’s a doctor now.)  This did not seem like a solid game plan to me when we had all completed BSNs practicums, and never mind our support staff was golden. Any extra time sitting at home wasted the >100K the AF had shelled out for my out-of states education.

Moving along, my sister went down with me to the one location within 100 miles where they were administrating the test, and she spent the night listening to me toss and turn. I’m sure by the next morning she was chomping at the bit to get home and bed down. But she never came right out and said a word, a fact for which I am very grateful, because I was barely keeping it together as it was.

You have to understand, you spend the better part of four years hearing about how horribly difficult the NCLEX is, and every year people from good schools who graduated with honors didn’t pass because they didn’t think like the people who wrote the test. So, like any standardized test, my trick was to slip out of my own mind and slip into my professors /test creators minds.  Is that weird? Don’t feel shy in answering that; of course, it’s weird.

Back to working in the day care which was located in the basement if the town’s Lutheran church. I worked with the two and three year olds, and I loved every second (except snack time. Snack time was awful. “I don’t like those Goldfish I was begging for 20 min ago,” or ” I can’t sit next her because she smells like cheese,” or “I’m not eating snack because you make us go outside after snack, and I hate outside.”) These daycare kids were so different from my little ones at the hospital who were so very, very sick, the ones I had to see so ill – had to watch die, hated watching them die. I probably wouldn’t have made a great full-time peds nurse because of it.

I arrived at my day care job to find an extra little boy, let’s call him RT. His hair was brownish, and his clothes were filthy. He even smelled dirty. I have a pretty keen since of smell, and most 2 year-old NO NOT smell like this.

The other girls told me that RT would be difficult at naptime. He just didn’t like to take naps. So, after letting him cry for about 5 min, I picked up his tiny little body and tucked it against my hip. Carting R.T. with me, I poked my head into my boss’ office and asked if she thought there’d be a problem if we bathed R.T. Ann looked surprised for a second then said, nope, let’s find some soap and something for him to wear.

He was so tiny he fit in the church’s kitchen sink, (Don’t worry, I cleaned the sink later.) and as soon as the water was warm enough I settled him into it. At first I think R.T wondered what this foreign liquid that I had plunged his little bottom into, but then he began to splash and play, and as he played the layers of dirt on that child began to crack and rinse off. I drained that sink and refilled it three times, and dirt was still being shed when I finally took up a washcloth bubbling with the Ivory and gently cleaned his face, then his torso, arms, legs. You get the idea. But imagine my surprise when he decided spontaneously to stick his head under the running lukewarm water and brown hair started to morph to blond. I grabbed that bar of Ivory and massaged his head. That tiny little boy had platinum curls. When I’d dried him, diapered him, and clothed him, RT gave me a glorious bright smile and hugged me saying one word, “Clean.”

We went back to the nap room, and RT then lay down and slept to the end of naptime. His mother, who did have other children who took hygiene in different stages, hugged me and thanked me. I thought maybe we’d started her on the motivational role to hygienic parenting, but, alas, for at least RT, this would not be the case.

The rest of the time RT’s mom dropped him off, he was equally filthy. But it never failed that about five minutes into nap time, He’d crawl to the foot of my napmat and wait, big blue eyes just staring at me, knowing I’d make him “clean.”

The power contained here, is that RT was right. He came to me to be cleansed, and I would do everything I could to make sure the dirt and grime he had collected over the past week was scrubbed away, washed until his blond hair shown. As a wonderful side effect, RT loved me for it.

Isn’t this similar to our relationship with God? I come filthy and messed up. My hair is muddy, and I certainly don’t smell like roses. And I come to him week after week just as torn, just as full of mess. But God doesn’t see any of that. He sees His child, the beautiful one He created simply so He would have something to love. And when He picks me up, dusts me off, scrubs me with Philosophy’s Pure Grace (Love that smell) it’s not about me at all. It’s simply about His Love.