Scraping away repression to find spilled blood

Many frescoes, icons, and other religious items were destroyed by the Soviets, and some churches are still in very bad states of disarray, or had been left to rot. Slowly, the churches are being released by the government to the people of faith.

Churches are being restored bit-by-bit, and they are finding frescoes and paintings as they scrape away the last 100 years. Hearing that, I thought of the scraping-away of the Soviet paint as the scraping-away of our sins, when we examine our hearts, and confess to the Lord those things we try to “paint over.” Only by letting the Lord help us scrape away at our faults can we expose the beauty hidden beneath, to ourselves and to God, who sees all.