I feel so stained. Like nothing can make me clean again. The things I've done — they're all I can see when I close my eyes.

Some things feel too deeply stained to come out, so you carry them quietly instead. Isaiah records an invitation issued before any cleaning up had happened — come now, as you are. What was scarlet does not end up faintly pink. It ends up white.

The conversation

The child: “Daddy God, I feel so stained. Like nothing can make me clean again. The things I've done — they're all I can see when I close my eyes.”

God: “Come. Sit with Me. I have an invitation for you. Not a lecture. Not a list of everything you've done wrong. An invitation.”

The child: “An invitation? For someone like me?”

God: “'Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD.' Come now. Not after you fix yourself. Not after you earn it. Now. As you are. Let's sit down and talk — reason together.”

God: “Then He says the most astonishing thing: 'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.' Scarlet. The deepest stain. The one that never washes out. And He says even that becomes white.”

The child: “As white as snow? Not just a little cleaner?”

God: “Not a shade lighter. Not mostly clean. White as snow. Have you ever seen fresh snow? It doesn't have shades. It's pure. Complete. Every trace of what was underneath — gone.”

God: “'Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.' He says it twice. Scarlet, crimson — the worst stains you can imagine. And still: white. He repeats it so you know He means it.”

The child: “But I keep remembering. If I'm white as snow, why do I still see the scarlet?”

God: “Because your memory isn't your identity. I'm not asking you to forget. I'm telling you what's true now. The stain is gone. Your memory is looking at a photograph of something that no longer exists.”

The child: “You said 'let us reason together.' You want to talk about it, not hide it.”

God: “I'm not afraid of your worst. Bring the scarlet. Bring the crimson. Bring the things you've never told anyone. I already know them. And My invitation still stands: come. Let's reason. Let Me show you what white looks like.”

The child: “Then I'm coming. All of it. Every stain.”

God: “And every one of them becomes snow. That's not a promise I might keep. It's a promise I already have.”

"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isaiah 1:18, KJV

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