Crazy Ninja Laundry Skills and...Baptism??

I've had more people asking about the source of my Laundry Ninja Powers, so I decided to write a little blog about it. But in the course of taking some pictures for this blog, I was reminded of a story that my Pastor always tells that demonstrates the necessity of baptism. So here you go, people...a devotional along with a valuable laundry tip!

Why is baptism so important? The symbolic washing away of our sins by getting dunked in water... is it really that important to God that we go through this routine?

As Pastor relates...he has three girls, and his wife loves to dress them up in pretty dresses and get them all nice for church. He caution them to NOT go out and play in the mud puddles that were so tempting outside. The youngest, in particular, loves to play in mud puddles. Invariably, she couldn't resist the temptation and soon was coming to her parents, sobbing in dismay and fear, because her beautiful church dress was soiled.

Like this exquisite white dress that my sister bought for Olivia at a boutique in the Ozarks. It is lovely; with delicate hand-made designs on the silky over-lay. I love this dress and love to see my daughter in it. But I didn't love when she spilled a drink all over it while eating after church one day.

Ugh! What a mess! Just like our lives...when they are stained with sin.

As a loving father, he takes his daughter into the house and his wife washes the little girl off, and they give her a clean dress to wear. All clean! Just like what baptism does.

But why is this so important?

Because of two simple truths. Our Father wants to see us washed and cleansed from all of our sins because otherwise, every time He is looked at us, He would be reminded of how we were disobedient to Him. How we sinned and were stained in filth. On the contrary, He wants to see us washed, clean, and made whole; He casts our sins into the sea of forgetfulness and wants to NEVER remember them again!

Secondly, every time WE would look at OURSELVES, we'd be reminded of our disobedience. Our failures. The mistakes we'd made. The grime and slime of our choices.

But baptism not only makes us clean for our Father, it makes us clean for ourselves; we don't have to keep remembering our sin and shame.

It's all washed away. We are clean! Pure!

What a miracle!

In the case of my daughter, my miracle is this soap: Fels-Naptha!

A good friend of mine cares for elderly patients in her home as a private business. She deals with tons of stains and depends on this soap every day. It's simple; you just get the garment wet in the stained area, and rub this soap on it. Vigorously scrub by hand, sometimes repeating. You may start to see the stain disappear but not always. Then wash the garment with your other laundry and check it after the washing cycle is done. 9 and 1/2 times out of 10, it's spotless!

I am not a fan of using harsh, toxic bleach on my clothes, although it certainly gets used in other areas of my home. I've used Fels-Naptha successfully on stains of blood, mud, throw-up, deodorant stains, food of all kinds, poop, grass,

and even the red dirt stains that are Hawaii is notorious for,

with its' dirt left over from flowing lava.

My favorite story is how I was selling a vintage Coca-Cola sweater on eBay that actually had been stored with some bottles of Coke that had leaked all over the sweater for 15 years as they sat in storage. I detailed the stains in my eBay listing so the buyer would know what they were getting, and a man in Ireland bought the sweater 'as is'. However, before shipping it, I wondered what it would hurt if I tried washing it with Fels-Naptha soap? To my amazement, the stains from over a decade ago completely came out! I shipped it to the buyer in Ireland and told him what I'd done; needless to say he was very pleased to be getting a totally stain-free sweater!

I looked up this soap online and found that it's actually been around for over 100 years! Something like that has got to be a quality product. You can order it online (www.felsnaptha.com) or get it at most drug stores in the laundry soap aisle; I get mine at our local Long's drugstore.

So there you have it; two simple reasons why baptism is important and the secret to my amazingly stain-free clothes, in spite of my having two small kids!