The Crimson Stain

The Crimson Stain

I grew up in a connected community, a large village type setting, where everyone knew everyone  else and all the children played actively on the local streets together. Our neighbourhood was surrounded completely by miles of Australian bushland, creating an even tighter community spirit. I was the youngest of four children. The year I turned four moved slowly by, as with eager anticipation I looked forward to the following year when I would finally join my siblings and neighbouring children at the local primary school just up the road. Each afternoon I would wander up the road, in a time when it was safe for four year olds to do so, waiting for the children to come home from school. Sometimes I had the privilege of walking with my next door neighbour right up to the school, to collect her daughter from Kindergarten. When I was there I noticed a new building being built. It was the new kindergarten building and I would stand on tip toes and gaze longingly inside knowing this was going to be my classroom in the new year. I was excited and eager to start school. 

I started Kindergarten with enthusiasm , and continued my schooling with high hopes as I could see the activities that each class ahead of me participated in and I would always look forward to each new school year with delight. The year I started third grade was such a year. I was moving from the infants rooms of kindergarten through to grade 2 and into the primary school block. Here was a long wooden building with a covered verandah right along the front of it. It housed the Principal’s office, three classrooms, followed by several steps up the veranda to the staff room and the library. I had advanced. I was in grade three. 

My teacher and my year 3 class mates

I knew this was the year I would do leatherwork and sure enough we did. Our parents purchased a variety of items made from raw leather hide, from key rings to belts to coin holders. My mother bought me a key ring and I determined to make this very special and just for her. With long metal stamps and a wooden mallet I imprinted an array of different patterns around the edge of the key ring and then I created another beautiful pattern on the inside. Finally it was complete and I chose a green dye to colour it, glued the edges together enclosing the round metal key holder, rubbed the edges with a wooden tool and the key ring for my mother was finished. I was seven turning eight and very proud of my accomplishment and I gifted it lovingly to my mother. 

Not the key ring I made but the same style

Leatherwork classes continued and I chose  a raw leather bookmark to work on next. I was busy in my grade three classroom. I did the imprinting at my old wooden desk in which initials of previous students had been mischievously engraved on and a round hole spoke of a past generation who had sat there with jars of ink, carefully writing with nibs and ink. I stamped my pattern with much thought and care, dreaming of whom I would gift this next item to. Then it was ready. It was ready for the dye. I chose a pink colour. We stained our leatherwork outside, on the verandah, in front of the library. Students sat on the dusty wooden steps or balanced on the edge of the long wooden bench that ran along the library window. I took my small, brown, glass bottle of dye and perched precariously on the wooden slats that made up the bench . I unscrewed the lid and placed the bottle out of my way beside the wall and continued to set up to dye my beautiful book mark. Alas, with one swift move of my arm I accidentally knocked the jar over. A bright crimson stream poured out and ran down the back of the bench against the cream painted building and dripped onto the floor beneath. I grabbed the bottle in an attempt to save any other contents. I looked at the spilled dye in dismay. Then my teacher noticed the event. With words that etched into my mind he slashed at me for my foolish stupidity. Biting, hurting, angry words. I kept in the tears. My joy was gone and I felt embarrassed and ashamed. It was seen by everyone. 

That crimson dye stained the wall of the building. Until I finished grade six it was there as a perpetual reminder of what felt like my shame. Sometimes as i would play, I would stop to gaze at it, feeling that every eye in the school was also peering at it and seeing me for who I really was. It stood out in stark contrast to the softened buff coloured wall on which it had seeped. When I reached my teen years, upon returning to the school to visit, it was with much relief that I found the school newly painted and the crimson stain was gone. No one could see it now. No one would know about me anymore.

A book parade going past the building with the freshly  painted over stain

Have you ever felt like there were things in your life you needed to hide? They seem like crimson stains that you wished were not so visible to others?  The feeling of shame, of past regrets, of failings, of sins confessed over and over but the feeling of never being cleansed continues to pervade. Yet God tells us that we can be cleansed. Our crimson stain can be removed. We can joy in the Lord and move forward from a past of regret. Will I accept His cleansing power? Will I move into a new future? Do I believe Him? Do you? 

Isa 1:18 "Come now, and let us reason together," Says the LORD, "Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.

Ps 51:7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Isa 43: 25 "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.