Here is a journal entry I made on 2 April 2008:

Last night as I re-read Alma 5 in the Book of Mormon, I was impressed with the words in vs. 21-27 where it describes how “no man can be saved except his garments are washed white; yea, his garments must be purified until they are cleansed from all stain, through the blood of him of whom it has been spoken by our fathers, who should come to redeem his people from their sins.”

He goes on to describe standing before the bar of God with your garments “stained with blood and all manner of filthiness” and those “whose garments are cleansed and are spotless, pure and white.” Verse 27 asks if we were called to die at this time, could you say “that your garments have been cleansed and made white through the blood of Christ, who will come to redeem his people from their sins?”

Yesterday I made the Bad mistake of throwing Claire’s dark pink sweatshirt into the same batch of clothes with Adam’s favorite white t-shirt, her white volleyball socks, and a few other important items that turned pink. I spent the evening trying to make things right with Spray Wash and bleach and soaking and scrubbing. I couldn’t get all the pink out, even with bleach. I went to bed with my hands stinking of Clorox and was reading those verses while I smelled the pungent odor of bleach on my skin.

I noticed how carefully he used the words “blood” (which makes you see red) and “white” and “stained” and “cleansed” and then how the miracle of Christ’s atonement is described as making our garments white through his blood (red). There is no way you can make something white by using red (or dark pink, for that matter). For blood to cleanse and make white, it is truly a Miracle. It just struck me again, what a miracle it all is that we can become clean.