About My Dad

As a young girl, I spent time watching my dad putter around cars. From his youth, he was fascinated with vehicles of every kind, so it’s not surprising that he became a mechanic. Over the years he spent hours fixing, cleaning, and maintaining our cars. Sometimes I merely watched his efforts, and other times I helped; the two of us cleaning side by side.

My dad’s love of cars has spanned the years and never waned.

Winning awards for his Jaguars

Due to his fastidious ways, our cars never broke down and always looked shiny and new. Most Sunday mornings, he would be up early hand washing the car in preparation for an outing later that day. He’d drive for ice-cream, a hike, or just the pleasure of enjoying the vehicles he cherished.

I wish I could say I adopted my dad’s car care methods, that I learned from him how to change a tire, do an oil change, or at least keep my own car clean. But most days my car looks more like it recently competed in the mud bowl. Yet my dad has never given up helping me. To this day, he’ll come over with his car vacuum, wash bucket, sponges and scrubbers, and a myriad of sprays and polishes, and proceed to detail my vehicle. No matter how disastrous its condition, my dad goes about the tidy up with the same scrupulous care as if it were his own. When he’s finished, it looks brand new.

It’s not just his love of cars that motivates my dad to help make my car look new again—it’s that he loves me.

Just as my dad helps clean up my messy car time and time again, so my heavenly father helps clean up the messes of my life over and over. I can bring any number of messes to him—both the ones I’ve created and the ones others dump on me—and he’ll help me clean them up.

He never leaves me to struggle alone in this clean up effort. No matter how disastrous the condition I find myself in, or whether he’s already helped me untold times before, God goes about the tidy up with patient, meticulous care. I don’t have to struggle to clean up the rotten bits that hide in the dark crevices of my life, or try to polish myself up before he arrives. Like my dad, he’s fully equipped to handle any kind—or amount—of mess.

And he does it because he loves me.

With God’s help, the clean up isn’t nearly as daunting or unwieldy. He willingly arrives and begins a cleansing work that renders me changed, inside and out. His loving-kindness and tender touch on every facet of my life, clean off all the dirt and soul soils making me like new. He never discontinues the clean up effort because I’m too messy, or because I can’t seem to remain clean. He shows up time and time again because I’m precious to him. And when he’s finished, I’m like new.

Nothing is beyond his reach, no clean up effort too great.

May you be blessed to feel God’s loving touch on your life, gently cleansing and restoring you to full beauty. 

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1. What mess are you dealing with that seems too big for you to handle alone?
2. Bring it to God and ask him to help you with the clean up effort.