This morning I was scrubbing up the sink (weekends are allocated for the house scrub-down). I was admiring the gleam reflecting back at me when I realized I'd left something yet to be cleaned and rinsed. The popcorn machine butter thingy. Now this piece belongs to an ancient popcorn making machine belonging to my father, and this little thingamabob was the part where you'd put the butter and while the popcorn was popping, the butter would melt and be ready to be poured over the fresh popcorn. This implement, having not been used in years (and I really mean years) was encrusted with some sort of grime (if you're guessing old leftover butter then you'd get first prize. Don't even begin to wonder why leftover butter would be allowed to sit for years - it boggles even my mind).
For about two weeks, I'd look at this thingy and just let it soak. Every time I got to the end of the dish-washing process, I'd look at it again, still encrusted, and let it soak longer.
Today, I decided having it sit there in the midst of my gloriously sparkling sink would be a heresy. I picked up my sponge, ready to battle the layers and layers of grime. To my surprise with one wipe of the sponge, it came away, leaving sparkling silver behind.
The ease with which this happened started a train of thoughts. This was exactly what life was like.
I mean, say you've got a problem; sometimes it's just better to let it sit for a bit and soak out the hardness and difficulty. That's easy to understand.
What's even more easy to understand - but what we always fail to remember - is that sometimes all it takes it the effort to get what you want, to get what you want. While I was looking down at the sponge in my right hand, and the thingamabob in my left, I was struck by a similarity to someone looking for diamonds. They're constantly finding rocks, which they give one glance and keep looking for the shining, hard, beautiful and priceless diamond in the midst of digging in the muck.
What one fails to understand is that all it would take is the effort to remove the mud around the rocks to find the diamond. And even more so - that life's problems are just like that. We constantly look at these rocks we're finding, and we think they're so useless and full of disappointments, and we're pulling ourselves down by the face-value of our problems. All it takes is one wipe - it is in the intention that faith is found. Faith is not in the moment you get what you want, it is in the moment when you don't know what you're getting, where you're going, but still take the step forward in order to achieve it.
We're casting ourselves around wondering when the diamond will show itself, when the grime will disappear. Obviously it's not going to show up ready-made for us. We have the power to wipe it away, all it takes is faith.
