When I was a boy we lived for a while in a wonderfully unique parsonage. It was a farm house, the old home-place of one of the families of the church, the Parmalee family, on a back-road west of Wayland, Michgian. They farmed the ground and we enjoyed living in the house. It was complete with a tire swing in a gnarly old Maple, barns, cats, a windmill and a lane that went back and back to a dark and mysterious forest. Along the lane was a rock-pile where I once saw a snake. I kept a close eye on that rock pile whenever I passed after that.
The house had a mud-room with an old-fashioned sink. Mom would always say; “Wash up for supper.” I would run hot water into that sink. I would stand on a little stool to reach the bar of soap at the back of the sink and lather up my hands while the sink filled with water, then I would float the soap in the water like a little raft. The soap didn’t sink like other soap. No matter what you did to it, when you let go of it, it would rise to the surface.
You may go through great hardship or testing. God may even need to discipline you and teach you in ways that are not pleasant, but if you are a believer you will always rise to the surface. If you are a believer you have the blessing of God on your life in Christ. God can do nothing but bless his Son and we are in Him. You can suffer chastisement, but it is for your ultimate good. Nothing can happen to you that is not ultimately for your good if you are in Christ.
Of course you know that the bar of soap in the old mud room was Ivory soap. In 1891 the company started billing it as “The soap that floats.”
When I’m going through hard things it helps my heart to know that ultimately in Christ I cannot be defeated. My spirit will never die. Nothing can reach me that God has not ordained for my good. He is in control of everything that touches me and when he is done with me I will bob to the surface like the soap that floats.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
August 26, 2013
