“Today is a Good Day for a Good Day.” That is one of two sayings you would see on the wall if you asked to use the bathroom at our house. It reminds me of the words of Psalm 118:24 “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Every morning, the statement suggests to me that no matter what happened yesterday or what my concerns for today might be, each day has the potential to be a good day. And even if it doesn’t feel like it has been a good day when I’m ready to retreat to my pillow at night, each day is a gift from God and His goodness is woven into it.
The second saying that you will see on my bathroom wall is “Get Naked”. Some guests have questioned my sanity regarding those words. But the words have a double meaning to me, both practical and spiritual. They are fitting, in my opinion, to scroll across the bathroom wall, because they tell exactly what is required before one would enter the shower. They also remind me exactly what is necessary in my relationship with God. Obviously the definition of being naked in the shower is to be without clothes. However, when I crack open my thesaurus and look up additional words with similar meanings, I read these definitions: undisguised, plain, unadorned, open, exposed, bare, stripped, unveiled, without covering.
For most of our lives, we have been taught to hide our emotional and spiritual brokenness and scars. Cover up. Put a smile on your face. Wear the mask. But I’m learning that if we really want to have an intimate relationship with Father, we need to get naked and bring all of who we are before Him. The good, the bad, the ugly. Even the saggy.
Some time ago, I received an email containing an article from Ann Voskamp titled “Brutally Honest Psalms.” Her words feel naked.
“How long, O Lord?
Have You dropped your watch, lost Your cosmic phone, forgotten that we are kinda just dying here, kinda just waiting here for You to rouse, wake up and finally do something, anything, for crying out loud?
How long till you see the blasted hands of the clock ticking down, like an atomic bomb, while You seem to just sit on Your hands?
How long till you peel back an eyelid up there and see that we’ve got people hurting like the dickens down here, and that open window with its sliver of possibility, it’s closing right before our eyes, and hear us:
Our endurance is flat out of breath, and our hope is withering up.
You may have all of forever, but we, sure as Sheol, do not.
How long till we see some light at the end of the tunnel — but what if that light turns out to be a train come barreling our way?”
Could you be this honest with God?
The shower might seem like an unlikely altar, but Hebrews 4:13 reminds us that “no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (ESV) Father knows everything anyway. Stop trying to cover up. I dare you to sit with Him and get naked.
Erin Jacobsma