unClean

Everyone was settling down for sleep, but the old woman had to talk to the teacher. What she’d heard tonight was earth-shattering. Mind-blowing. Life-changing. Filth removed, disgrace transformed to honor, rejected now accepted? The story of the sick woman and Jesus was unlike any of the stories told in her tribe.

The flickering firelight deepened the rich, warm espresso of her wizened face as she leaned close to the storyteller.

“Thank you.”

Like the woman reaching her hand out to touch Jesus, she paused to gather her courage for the next words.

“I always knew I could be forgiven. But I never knew I could be clean.”

To learn more about this woman’s story and how you can be made clean, get your copy of Covered Glory: The Face of Honor and Shame in the Muslim World here.

That’s just it, isn’t it?

Our souls are longing to be clean. Forgiveness is one thing, but clean? Clean is another matter altogether. #believewhatistrue #unGallery #hope Share on X

There are many ways to get dirty. Sometimes we dirty ourselves; other times, we are soiled by another’s carelessness and cruelty. In some instances, unclean is a position in society. For many women and men around the world, clean or unclean was never a choice. They were labeled unclean from the beginning because of the caste into which they were born, the disability, race, or gender they bear.

Our identity spreads with a terrible stain: the belief that I am unclean, and I can never be made pure.

The woman who had an abortion thirty years ago knows she is forgiven, but cannot seem to get out from under the smothering weight of shame.

The worship leader guides the congregation into God’s presence with joy every week but weeps in private, unable to escape the choking filth of childhood sexual abuse.

The Muslim girl prays five times a day, helps her mother, and obeys her father, all the while wondering why she still feels impure at the end of each day after all her efforts.

The middle-school boy tries with all his might to fit in but remains a lonely outcast.

The college student leans over the toilet, emptying the contents of her stomach, desperately trying to purge the feeling of never good enough.

The person of color wears that color like a stain, rather than the vibrant, delightful, beautiful hue his Creator designed it to be.

The single mother struggling to make ends meet kneels by the bed of her sleeping child at night and wonders why she was abandoned.

Shame, filth, impure, outcast, never good enough, stain, abandoned… all lead to the same conclusion: I am unclean.

Just as there are many ways we come to believe ourselves dirty, there are many ways we try to become clean.

I once lived with an African tribe who used dirt to remove dirt. Each day after the main meal, we would sit under the baobab tree scrubbing pots. The first time I saw my friend Fatuma take a clump of wiry grass, rub it in the dirt, then with a small amount of water begin to scrub the dinner pot, I was astonished as I thought to myself, 

She is trying to remove dirt with dirt.

Inevitably she would have to reach for her rock to scrape the stubborn residue off. 

Our efforts to perform, to be accepted, to follow the rules, to belong to the right group, to forget the abuse, to work harder, try harder, be more, be different… they are all like using dirt to remove dirt. They have no lasting power to give us the clean our souls long for. 

That cloistering feeling of filth was my constant childhood companion. It drove me to perfectionism, performance, and control. They became my own little clumps of dirt, as I tried with all my might to remove the dirt flung on me from before I was old enough to know how to wash my own hair, nevertheless my soul.  

Are you weary of the scrubbing? Trying to remove dirt with dirt? 

Dear one, there is indeed a Rock, and His name is Jesus. He is willing to make us clean. We do not need to use dirt to remove dirt. He has made us clean by His shed blood on the cross and no stain is beyond its mighty power. His hand is outstretched to you and me today. Come, be made clean.

A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed… Matthew 8:2-3

Lord, I bring my dirt to you. Please make me clean. Hallelujah! I have been made clean! Amen.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that humanity often finds lies easier to believe than truth.

—Audrey Frank

Some of those lies seem to be written on hearts in permanent ink, graffitied in different languages across cultures and continents, yet all meaning the same. unWorthy. unLoveable. unSeen. unHeard. unKnown. unClean. unDefended. 

At The Truth Collective, we are seeking to uncover the lies and help people believe what is True. We are proud to unveil our latest project, the unGallery, premiering in Charlotte, NC, October 10-11. Global artists have contributed exquisite expressions of the lies we often believe, and the Truth that sets us free. I hope you will join us by reserving your space here. Be sure to use the code AudreyFrank for a 30% discount.

We’ve been unpacking these truths at our weekly storytime. Thanks for showing up as we uncover lies and believe truth together.