The Lesson of the Blanket

What Does a Discarded Blanket Have to Do with Lent?

Was it the fourth or fifth straight day of rain when I drove home from church to a strange-looking mound of something on our street corner? Was it a bundle of trash? An animal? A tarp? Pulling my raincoat hood up, I cautiously sloshed over to check it out.

A drenched blanket, soaked in grime and stink, assaulted my senses. I figured it belonged to a person without a house heading to Corbin Park, a block away. The saturated blanket must have been too cold and heavy to wear anymore, so he or she just dropped it right then and there… on our corner.

Well, I didn’t want it on our corner!

So, I thought I’d put it on someone ELSE’S corner (in Christian love, of course). Or perhaps hang it over the fence across the street, but the putrid STENCH of the blanket might literally drive the passing people off the sidewalk onto the street. Because neither of those options seemed very neighborly, I decided to simply throw the pile of smell and yuck into the alley trash bin. 

But I couldn’t. That blanket belonged to someone precious, someone who probably felt discarded. And to me, trashing it felt akin to discarding the value of that person.

I decided to WASH it! I carefully picked it up, and at arm’s length, hurried downstairs and quickly threw it into the washing machine. When I took it out, the pungent odor still smelled of sick. So I scurried across the street, borrowed some Downey fabric softener from our neighbor, and along with more detergent, poured the sweet-smelling liquid into the machine for Wash #2. When the cycle finished, I tossed the blanket into the dryer.

Didn’t work. The blanket odor was still enough to turn my stomach.

So, another pitch into the machine for WASH #3, along with more fragrance of Downey, and a return trip through the dryer. Voila!

Tucked into the dryer lay a lovely, colorful hand-made quilt.

Having no idea what to do with it, I neatly folded it over the arm of one of our downstairs chairs.

Two days later was the 5th Friday of Lent. I happened to look at the label on the blanket. It read: “Made with tender loving care for ‘Project Linus’ Providing security through blankets”. The bottom of the label read: Not to be sold.

Right then and there, I took hold of that quilt, threw it over my shoulders and, in tears, began praying for the one who could carry this blanket no longer. I could almost hear Corbin Park beckoning. As I walked and prayed beneath the blanket, how could I miss the staggering parallels during this Lenten season? The Grime of Greed. The Stench of the devastating and damaging choices of which we are all capable.

And the Lion of Judah, Immanuel, the God who is with us, JESUS, crushed for our iniquities and wounded for us all, bore and wore… at ARM’S length… the chilling and filthy WEIGHT of our sin.

And then, those 3 transforming days that washed redemption into the fabric of our lives. REDEMPTION literally means: the action of buying back someone’s freedom, NOT TO BE SOLD AGAIN. A promise bathed in the Fragrance of the resurrected Christ.

A blessed assurance not hand-made, but nail-made into being with more love, more care, more tortured tenderness that we can ever imagine.