As I was folding yet another basket of laundry – kitchen towels to be exact – I began to wonder why we have so many but never seem to have enough. This creates a problem, you see. We are constantly using towels to dry hands, wipe down counters, dry pots and pans and mixing bowls. Multiply all those for a family of 11 and you can imagine how many towels we go through in a day. And then they have to be laundered.

Later on in the day I was drying a mixing bowl {dirtied while making chocolate sheet cake}. As I set the bowl and towel down I thought again about towels, how I’m constantly using them in my homemaking duties. As all the thoughts of everything that has to be done, needs to be done but wasn’t getting done started flooding into my mind I could feel myself becoming discouraged. And yes, even a little under appreciated.

And then, THEN, I remembered this. . . .

and suddenly the discouragement left. Jesus Christ used a towel too!

4 He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself.

5 After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.

6 Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?

7 Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.

8 Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.

9 Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.

10 Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all.

11 For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean.

12 So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you?

13 Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.

14 If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.

15 For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.

16 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.

17 If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. (John 13:4-17)

“He their Lord and Master had washed their feet. It was a kind and gracious task, and such ought to be the nature of all their dealings with each other. He had done it to teach them humility, … self-denial, [and] love” (Farrar, Life of Christ, p. 559).

I don’t think I will ever look at a simple towel the same way again.

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