I want to wash the moto.

Rain and I were washing our moto earlier today per Rain's request. It's not something I remember to do so often, but since the rainy season is beginning here it's slightly more obvious when it's washed or not. I find it somewhat superfluous to wash the moto though because we live on a dirt road and it just gets dirty again every time we leave. Rain was quite committed to wanting to do this today though, so we did.

We started off dumping buckets of water on it repeatedly to wash away as much of the mud as we could. Our hose has been missing for quite some time now. Probably almost 2 years. It's just one of those things that I never remember to buy when I go out because who makes a special trip to the hose selling store just to buy a piece of hose?

After the moto was sufficiently wet and a portion of the mud was washed away we started scrubbing with our rags and dish soap.

It's easy to clean the headlight and the seats, easy to clean the parts that everyone sees. There's a few marks that have stuck around now - like the wood stain/sealant that's splattered over the front of the moto from a bouncy ride to a friend's house 3 and a half years ago. The moto still cleans up well for being 4 years old with many thousands of kilometers on it.

As I kept cleaning though I inevitably made it to the exhaust pipe and the back tire and the underneath of the moto. And I had a thought as I was deciding just how committed I was to getting our moto actually clean tonight. Starting comparing this moto to our lives and realizing that it's so easy to make the top parts that everyone sees look nice and pretty - on the moto or in our lives, but the dirt is hidden underneath and it takes much more work to clean it out and much more effort to make it look nice and new again. And it's not always possible to do by yourself. You need more to clean the dirt off the underside of the moto. More pressure is much more effective. And more it takes more time to make the moto actually clean while in the process of it all far more dirt is washed out than you really thought was in there.

And that's how it seems to be with life sometimes too. The last few months have not been the easiest to walk through for me and as I'm trying to figure things out and understand what's happening now and what's going to happen I'm realizing that there is so much hidden underneath that's just not pretty. And it needs to be washed out, but if it's not done in the right way it will just leave a pile of mud all around me for others to be tainted with. There is a way to walk through struggles that is honoring to yourself, to those around you and ultimately to Jesus. I want that to be the way I take. I am trying to make that my reality.

Rain was more intent on having a clean and shiny moto than I was, he was still trying to scrub away with his old holey sock that was caked in mud when I was calling it quits for the night. Even without a hose he was convinced he could get all that dirt off underneath if I would keep filling up buckets of water for him. This is one of my stubborn little men. Resilient to the core. Courageous. Honest. Committed. Persistent. and rather lovable.