The Cleansing Flower: From compulsive order to inner order

Crab Apple

Self-hatred, Unclean, Disgust

Shame

Disgust, self-loathing, embarrassment

This is the remedy of cleansing. For those who feel as if they had something not quite clean about themselves. Often it is something of apparently little importance: in others there may be more serious disease which is almost disregarded compared to the one thing on which they concentrate. In both types they are anxious to be free from the one particular thing which is greatest in their minds and which seems so essential to them that it should be cured. They become despondent if treatment fails. Being a cleanser, this remedy purifies wounds if the patient has reason to believe that some poison has entered which must be drawn out.

Reflection

Crab Apple reflects shame, the sense of being unclean or unacceptable in one's own eyes. The feeling can attach to the body, to a habit, or to the self as a whole. God does not ask a person to earn a clean heart. He gives one. Shame that refuses cleansing keeps a soul away from the mercy that answers it.

Scripture

Psalm 51:10 (KJV). "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me."

Meditation

God, create in me a clean heart. I bring You the shame I keep turning over, and I receive the cleanness You give.