rust.

I have a shower caddy in my bathroom. It’s pretty and silver and shiny…at least, it was. Pretty soon after I bought it, the thing began to rust. (This is normal for me, by the way—I’m not sure I’ve ever had a shower caddy that didn’t deconstruct rather quickly. And I call that a fundamental flaw.) I noticed it right away. I realized I needed to take my Herbal Essences shampoo and St. Ives body wash off of the top rack, go buy an S.O.S. pad, and do a little scrubbing. That’s all—an hour of my time—and the rust would be gone.

But I could think of at least 20 other things I’d rather do in that hour. So I did one of those things instead. And not surprisingly, the rust got worse and worse. Today, I noticed that about a third of the bottom rack is covered in orange. It’s happened so gradually that I almost got used to it looking that way. But pretty soon, if I don’t take care of it, I’ll have to throw it away and get a new one. Again.

It actually reminded me of some situations in my life where I’ve noticed some rust…a growing tendency to procrastinate, an aversion of exercise, a sudden “weirdness” in a close relationship. And when I notice the “rust,” I have a choice: I can either take an S.O.S. pad and scrub the thing (change my attitude or confront the relational problem) or I can ignore it and just stand back as the situation deteriorates.

If I choose the latter, however, the thing will soon become like my rusted-out, useless shower caddy, which is more likely to cause tetanus than bring any good to the world.

I wonder if I’m the only one…

Sometimes I look around and I see relational carnage—people leaving jobs because of friendships gone sour, breakups over conflict that was never resolved, people just not talking to each other…and they don’t even know why…and I wonder: if the root issue had been addressed early on, in honesty and love, as soon as the rust began to grow, could the relationship have been saved?

If I had dealt with my shower caddy early on, it could still be usable now. Are we willing to deal with the rust in our lives as soon as it appears? Our relationships depend on it...