I’ve been swimming twice in the past two days. Joe and I decided to go after Freshman Spaghetti and Kelli came along. Joe tried to teach us the breast stroke (Kelli mildly got it, I wasn’t even close-you have to “clap your feet”). Kelli taught me the “cherry picker” stroke, which I’m great at because it’s an old lady aerobics stroke. Joe tried to convince me that it’s called the side stroke but I’m pretty adamant that it’s not. Last night Joe and I had a cherry picking race. Kelli was the judge so I ‘won’ both times. I’ve gotten a lot better since the beginning of the year, when I didn’t have goggles and I would just make random ninety degree turns in the lane because I have no sense of direction in the water. While I appreciate my goggles, I also appreciate the chlorine because of what my goggles allow me to see. Last night, I observed a tiny piece of black fuzz, an old band aid, and the wrapper of a feminine hygiene product. My thought was, “Yuck, I’ve choked on this water like a hundred times already.” But the night before, after Kelli spit into her goggles and then rinsed them off in the pool (everyone does that, even me) she said, “That’s what chlorine’s for!” It’s true. God is like the chlorine in our lives. He doesn’t say that our lives (our pool) are going to be completely free of every sin (used bandaids) but he neutralizes the grossness so that it doesn’t affect us. Get it? God makes the sin our life unable to affect us. God is the chlorine of our swimming pools. So, the next time you see a piece of fuzz in your pool (the next time you’re tempted to do something bad) remember that Jesus, the pool man, made a big sacrfice so that He could pour God into your pool to cleanse you.