What is the purpose of dirty laundry? Is it simply to keep us busy 24/7? I’ll never understand how, after spending all day washing and folding, that the very next morning the laundry bin is overflowing again. There must be a Laundry Fairy. She comes in the middle of the night while we’re asleep, but instead of leaving money like the precious Tooth Fairy, she whips up with her wand piles of dirty clothes. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

A late-night laundry encounter happened to my younger sister, Deedle. It changed my perspective on laundry forever. When she was in her twenties, she spent her summers working at a small-town theme park in North Carolina. On this particular evening, she forgot to turn in her tights and undergarments to be laundered so they would be ready to wear with her costume the next day. Realizing her dilemma, she decided to wash them herself. She grabbed a phonebook (yes, no cell phones in those days) and began searching for the nearest coin-operated laundromat. At 1:00 AM, she walked into the laundromat.

She immediately discovered she wasn’t the only one out at that hour doing their laundry. There was one man folding clothes. Though she was a little nervous, she thought, “He’s older than me. I can outrun him.” So, she proceeded to put her clothes in the washer, insert the coins, and took a seat.

The man then approached her and said, “Please don’t be afraid. But can I ask you something?” Deedle, being the trusting person she is said, “Sure.” And the man began to talk about Christ with her.

Around 1:30 AM, inside a small-town laundromat, my sister got on her knees and prayed to receive Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. Who knew that forgetting to wash her undergarments would be the conduit that made it possible for her to hear the gospel? God knew. He knew one of His own would be in a laundromat in the middle of the night and would share the Good News with my sister whose heart was ready to hear.

Are there days when you ask yourself, What’s the point of all this laundry? I still have those days occasionally, but then I remember Deedle’s encounter: how God used a man folding laundry to share Christ with her. Let’s allow God to give the mundane of our lives new purpose by seeing them as opportunities to share Christ.

CHERIE NETTLES

is a Christian comedienne, author, and speaker. She’s a mother of two and lives in West Columbia, S.C. with her husband, Mike.