Cleaning House!
By Kareena Holloway, Fellowship Bible Church NWA Celebrate Recovery Women's Encourager Coach
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:23-24
We had put our house on the market a few years ago. Before we could do that, we needed to clean it out. In the process of that, we had to go through all of the rooms and decide what was to be donated, thrown away, or stored away for later use. In other words, we had to take a look at things we'd been hiding away or shoving away in there! As the family worked through the process, we each went through the usual, expected resistance at one time or another of just not wanting to confront it. Being 100% honest, it had been so easy to just push it away in a closet and pretend it wasn't even there. However, we pushed through it and got the jobs done.
In doing all of that, I couldn't help but think of the similarity in our recovery process. My house was like my mind. I had a lot of rooms to go through. Then I saw the closets. Oh, the closets of things I needed to go through! In my mind, I have those closets, too. The places where I shove things back to the back and just shut the door so that on the outside it looks great! Should be fine, right? I mean, no one can see what's in there...but then, since we were trying to sell our home, there was an Open House. I didn't think about the closets until that morning. There was no time to do what needed to be done, so I had to face the fact that people walking through may, in fact, open up one of those closets and see the mess. My mess. (They also saw the cobwebs I forgot to knock down behind the storm door. Whoops!) Now, I could have taken on an "I don't care" attitude, but I realized that these things NEEDED to be taken care of, whether we were selling the house or not! The question was, once I finished "cleaning house", would I keep it clean? Would I check those closets now and again to clear out the stuff that's been conveniently hidden or shoved away there? Just as cleaning the house was not a task I could take on all by myself, I needed accountability to go through the closets and rooms too. Once the big stuff was done, the rest was a whole lot easier to tackle when the time came, and it wasn't quite so shocking to see it when I opened that closet door the next time.
So what about you? Is it time to clean house? Time to get rid of the things you've been shoving back in the closet? Something to think about as we go through this next week. Like my family, we don't want to let it get as cluttered as it was again, but we know that we need to check our rooms and closets now and then as well. Have a great week!
In doing all of that, I couldn't help but think of the similarity in our recovery process. My house was like my mind. I had a lot of rooms to go through. Then I saw the closets. Oh, the closets of things I needed to go through! In my mind, I have those closets, too. The places where I shove things back to the back and just shut the door so that on the outside it looks great! Should be fine, right? I mean, no one can see what's in there...but then, since we were trying to sell our home, there was an Open House. I didn't think about the closets until that morning. There was no time to do what needed to be done, so I had to face the fact that people walking through may, in fact, open up one of those closets and see the mess. My mess. (They also saw the cobwebs I forgot to knock down behind the storm door. Whoops!) Now, I could have taken on an "I don't care" attitude, but I realized that these things NEEDED to be taken care of, whether we were selling the house or not! The question was, once I finished "cleaning house", would I keep it clean? Would I check those closets now and again to clear out the stuff that's been conveniently hidden or shoved away there? Just as cleaning the house was not a task I could take on all by myself, I needed accountability to go through the closets and rooms too. Once the big stuff was done, the rest was a whole lot easier to tackle when the time came, and it wasn't quite so shocking to see it when I opened that closet door the next time.
So what about you? Is it time to clean house? Time to get rid of the things you've been shoving back in the closet? Something to think about as we go through this next week. Like my family, we don't want to let it get as cluttered as it was again, but we know that we need to check our rooms and closets now and then as well. Have a great week!
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