Bubble, Bubble, Baths, and Trouble

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It’s been a chilly February here in the Capital region. When it gets cold, there’s nothing I love more than a lavender-scented bubble bath with a good book, and bath water that’s just below scalding. After eight years living in a series of apartments with progressively worse water heaters, bring on the heat. If you spend enough years boiling water on the stove like Laura Ingalls Wilder to supplement tepid bath water, you will find yourself regularly hugging your sparkly new water heater like it’s a dear friend.

Squirrel feels differently. I make sure the water’s the perfect temperature, put a peanut butter lick mat on the tile wall, use delicious smelling shampoo - basically make it a perfect, doggy day spa. But no. He’s miserable.

To his credit, Squirrel doesn’t fight me like our family’s German Shepherd used to. It took two people just to drag her into the bathtub. Squirrel will march into the bathroom of his own accord, but by “march” I mean “death march.” You can just hear the drums in the background marking his path toward the hangman's noose. His head hangs low, and he lumbers instead of his usual trot. Once in the bathtub, he keeps his head by his paws and stares up at me, using the whites of his eyes to his full advantage. 

I keep telling him that his bath day is even worse for me; I’m the one who not only has to scrub him but the entire bathroom after he shakes and gets everything dirty and furry. He doesn’t seem to believe me.

While I have never once complained about being forced to take a bubble bath, there are many other chores that catch me grumbling. At this point in my walk with Christ, I’m pretty good at knowing the “do’s” and “don’ts.” To be clear, I don’t believe that following Christ is about rules, but that doesn’t mean that some rules don’t exist. And while I’m good at recognizing those, and even good at at least attempting to follow them, that doesn’t mean I don’t grumble my way through. Following God’s way of life always has a cost - a cost to my wallet, time, social life, or reputation. “I’ll do it if I have to, but don’t expect me to be happy about it.”

I’m a really good grumbler. 

How bold of me to obey Christ with a complaining spirit, and then act as if I deserve some kind of award for my martyrdom. Joan of Arc sacrificed her life. I sacrificed my Thai takeout budget for the month to give money to a non-profit. God, how I’ve suffered. 

I give Squirrel a bath to make him outwardly clean. God asks me to follow the Kingdom way of living to make me inwardly clean. Christ took away my sin on the cross, but dying to the sin nature and becoming more like him comes down to day-to-day choices. Why would I ever grumble at the idea of becoming more like my Savior?

Well, because it’s hard. It does, in fact, have a cost. 

But the gain. Oh the gain. There is no comparison.