Over thirty years ago, I inherited a refrigerator. Well, more accurately, one was left in an old house I bought. Whoever left it there also left everything that was inside it. It had been a few months since they had vacated the premises. Since some of you good folks might be wanting to eat breakfast or lunch after a while, I’ll spare you the most disagreeable details. Your imagination is probably already at work, anyway. Let’s just say it was the most offensive, nauseating, disgusting thing I’d ever encountered and I’d grown up on a farm with chickens, hogs and cattle. I’d also helped open up a septic tank and cleaned out a grease trap. That refrigerator filled with rotten food topped all of those things on my list of quease-inducing activities. With the help of a friend, I moved the refrigerator out into the yard. Without the help of that friend, I got everything out, turned a garden hose on it and began the cleaning part.

I couldn’t help remembering that this weekend while Randa and I devoted ourselves to the task of cleaning up in our most recently vacated apartment. She spent all of Friday evening and most of Saturday morning scrubbing the stove. Apparently, some part of everything that ole Nickeroo had ever cooked on top of or inside of that stove had boiled over, spilled, splashed or otherwise made its way onto some surface, whether visible or hidden. I didn’t think it was possible, but Randa has that stove looking like a brand new one now.

Given that I was the one with the history of refrigerator evacuation, fumigation and renovation, I tackled that job. It’s amazing what Krud Kutter, Comet and elbow grease can accomplish. Although at one point, it appeared that I had literally crawled inside the thing, the refrigerator also looks brand new. After Randa scrubbed the kitchen baseboard, I took on the task of the floor. After sweeping up the litter, the spilled cat food, the pieces of wrappers and scraping up a few spots of matter best left a mystery, I began mopping.

With the vinyl tiles wet with cleaning solution, I took a scrub brush to ever one of the V-joints. After a couple of hours of that, the tile in the kitchen and dining area now look new, too.

There’s a simple explanation for all of those hours of scrubbing, scraping, cleaning and scouring; it’s the only way there is to get rid of the grease and grime and make those things look new again. The only way. And that is the same explanation for why God decided to send his Son to earth and make him the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

There was no other way.

H. Arnett
8/17/09