I really love to have things clean and organized. As you can see from the picture of my kitchen cupboard above, this is not always my reality! One of the things that holds me back from an organizing project is that I know in order to clean up a mess, I have to make a bigger mess first. I can end up going a long time just stuffing things back into an overflowing cupboard or closet and pushing the door shut. I have to face the fact that when I finally make the time to deep clean and organize it is going to look a lot worse before it gets better. It can be humbling too, to pull things out that I have squirreled away, “just in case,” that have actually not been doing me any good, just taking up space.
Once again it is amazing how physical aspects of life mirror inner, emotional aspects. I have done this very thing emotionally, many times throughout my life. I stuff a bunch of hurts into a little cupboard of my heart. A lot of times I don’t even really know what’s in there, but I just keep pushing that door closed. It is not always fear that keeps me from looking at these things. The busyness of life, laziness, tiredness can all keep me paralyzed. Also, as with my kitchen cupboard, I know things will get messy before they get better!
I can see God doing the same thing in the circumstances of life. Every now and then He seems to take a part of my life and make what looks like a mess to me. If I choose to trust Him, and lean into Him during these times, on the other side I see how He was really doing some deep cleaning in a part of my soul.
After I finally clean out a cupboard or closet I have such a feeling of accomplishment. I no longer avoid opening the door, instead I get happy when I need to get an item out of the newly organized space. When I make it through one of God’s cleaning sprees, I feel the same way. The issue I had stuffed way down deep is no longer as painful or scary. I feel a new sense of freedom in that area of my life.
I pray that you and I will continue to be brave and allow God to keep showing us areas of ourselves that He wants to heal and that when we come out on the other side we will have a deeper understanding of God’s grace.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28
“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
Warriors are proud of their scars. They love to tell the stories of each of the battles the scars represent: “This one was when we were surrounded and I fought my way through; my arm was half-off, but I made it! Oh, this one here? That was when it looked like all hope was lost, but we rallied and won.” Scars tell a story of battle and victory.
The Bible tells us we are in a spiritual battle all the time, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12 The strange thing though, is that we as followers of Christ are not proud of our scars. We try to hide or minimize them. Really they are marks that we have overcome by the power of Jesus and have lived to tell about it!
I think we see our scars as ugly, painful and useless. We can also get a mistaken idea that when we become followers of Jesus that those scars should just disappear. One day that will be true, when we get to heaven our scars will be gone. However, here on Earth they are still very much of use. For ourselves the marks we carry can be reminders to not go back to behaviors etc. that caused our hurt in the first place. For others we meet who are in similar battles to what we have gone through, our scars can be encouragement that we made it through and are still alive to tell the story.
Driving past a playground last Spring I saw a daddy climbing up a slide, drying it for his little daughter with what appeared to be his own jacket.
Random acts of kindness are always encouraging, but when people love like Jesus loves, that is truly amazing. Jesus was always going above and beyond what anyone in His day considered possible in the realm of love. He not only talked to women, He talked to the most disenfranchised of women. He didn’t just heal lepers, He touched them before they were healed. Jesus, in fact, had this uncomfortable habit of loving everyone!
God promises that some day that will be how it is. We will live in perfection and love with Him for eternity. For now, however, we need to be the ones showing that unquenchable love that Jesus showed. We just need to be willing for Him to love through us and to have Him open our eyes to opportunities to love with that amazing love with which He first loved us.
During the sermon* on Sunday the question was raised, what if Jesus was coming to dinner at your house in ten days? I of course thought immediately of the massive cleaning that would need to take place. I don’t think ten days would be enough! The pastor also talked about how we would probably want to serve Jesus the best food we could. The physical preparations that we would make was part of the point of the sermon, but there was also a deeper message.
What if when Jesus arrived it was a little awkward? “Oh, um, hi Jesus, haven’t talked to you in awhile.”
We get caught up in the formality of prayer, when really it can be very informal because Jesus is 
interested in everything about us. “That flower is so pretty Jesus, thank you for making it!” “Jesus I was thinking of making soup for dinner what do you think?” This may sound very strange, but when we can get into the habit of continually praying, even about the small things, when the big things come we will immediately take them to Jesus.
Do your kids use Moogle? This was around long before Google started answering our every question.
I love that we can ask God all the questions we want. In fact, He LOVES to have us ask questions. I think we get caught up in the idea that prayer has to be a formal thing, began and ended properly. However, in the Bible, Paul reminds us to pray unceasingly. This sounds more like a running dialog to me, which I love, because I love to talk! (My children come by their talking natures naturally.) God is the original Google, and He repeatedly encourages us to ask and seek from Him.
The other wonderful thing is God never needs a break from our questions. He doesn’t get overwhelmed, stressed, tired or hungry. He is even awake in the middle of the night when we wake up with questions. Sometimes we may “hear” an answer, and other times we might find an answer as we read the Bible since it is full of promises for us. Because it is a “living” book, the answers to our questions have a way of popping off the page at just the right moments.
Spring is thunderstorm season where I live. Great big piles of dark clouds show up and bump into each other. We get hail showers that always thrill my children. For a little while the sky will be glowering and dark.
Last spring right after one of these storms, while the sky overhead still loomed gray and heavy, I drove down the hill to the next town over. I ended up driving out from under the cloud mass into brilliant sunshine, quite a change from where I had just been. In the sunlight everything showed up bright and new-looking.
As I finished my errand and turned my car toward home, I was astonished to see how black the clouds looked with the sun shining on them. They hadn’t seemed that dark when I was still under them. I had a whole new perspective from my vantage point in the light.