Coffee Brown Lines

Four years ago this fall, I was new to the pecan harvest. Surrounding my home back then was a yard with five pecan trees. Noting several nuts fallen to the ground with their green husks still attached, I tried prying these coverings off with my thumb nails. This practice usually ended in the discovery of a wormy nut and the further staining of my nails, but rarely did I uncover a nut worth keeping.

Routinely I attempted to wash the brown discoloration from my finger tips. Just as routinely, I was unsuccessful. A month later I still had two coffee brown lines mid-way up my nails. Only as they grew longer and following repeated trimming did the marks eventually disappear.

Sin is like that. Sometimes the sin is long ago committed and properly cleansed, but the full impact, though diminished, is still evident. It is easy to tell ourselves in that moment, “This will go away,” when reality is that only as time goes on will the stain be removed.

I wonder if we viewed sin from the stain end back to the act if we would sin so often and so freely. I wonder. Wrong, as surely as right, leaves its mark.

Tim Gramly
Education Pastor
SHBC
November 12, 2008