Dirty Laundry

"I live every day like it's my last.  That's why I don't have any clean socks. 'Cause c'mon, who really wants to do laundry on the last day of their life?"

When my sister mailed me the photo tour of her new apartment at the start of the school year, she included a picture of this quote.  It was painted in a overly cutesy fashion on the wall of the communal laundry room.  I really had to chuckle at it as I say it, and thought about how I'd much rather be wearing a nice clean pair of socks, even if it was my last day on earth.  I'd be so embarrassed if the coroner came to pick me up, and all my socks were dirty.

This quote reminds me of a much less innocent mindset described in the Book of Mormon:

"Yea, and there shall be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us. And there shall also be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little, take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God." (2 Nephi 28:7-8)

Don't be guilty of this mentality.  Of course the consequences of dying with dirty socks are nearly as lasting or meaningful as the consequences of facing judgment with a dirty conscience.  Our Savior Jesus Christ prepared the way that each of us can change our hearts and become clean.  When we have faith in Jesus Christ, repenting, and starting anew to follow His commandments, we let him clean our hearts better than we could clean our socks.

"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)

Image: Wikimedia Commons