Cleaning House

September 20, 2008

I sit perched on the edge of disaster, literally. Not long ago, my room in my grandparents’ house appeared rather orderly. Now, it appears as if a bomb exploded. And I am sitting on the very edge of a full-sized bed covered in books, papers, bank statements, Greek flashcards, notebooks colored pencils, cards, CDs, post-it notes, a travel mug, a flashlight, piano music, a first aid kit, etc. I’m surrounded by piles: to be stored at home-home (a.k.a. where the parental units dwell), to be thrown away (there are a few of these piles), to be reorganized and kept here…It’s not pretty, not one little bit. I’m still trying to figure out what to do about sleep. I mean it’s nearly midnight and my bed’s covered in crap. Clearly this mess isn’t going to be gotten cleaned up in the next hour, so I suppose I’ll have to pile stuff on the ground more and on the dresser.

No, I am not a freakishly messy person who regularly, within days, makes her room look like a HAZMAT team needs to sweep the area. The reason it’s a disaster zone is that I have had five boxes in this room, FIVE, of random stuff that may or may not be worth keeping. Why five boxes? Well, for one, I tend to be over prepared. For another, I’ve developed the hideous habit of not sorting through things. When I first moved in, I brought at least one box solely of papers, papers, and more papers that I knew needed sorting. I knew there were things in there of use and worth treasuring – notes on the Bible, meaningful cards carefully wrought by friends and family – and I also knew that most of it should just be thrown away. So, I brought that box with me with every intention to go through it right away. That was two years ago. That box has multiplied like an amoeba (as in asexually…it made sense to me at least since it was just one box). Before I left for summer I shoved odds and ends into more boxes, knowing that soon something had to be done.

I moved back in for good this week and I have been staring at those boxes piled in a corner. They’ve been driving me crazy. Stuff shoved out of sight is supposed to be out of mind. I put that crap in boxes to keep it out of the way, for convenience. But I couldn’t take it anymore! They were taking up space and all that disorder within them weighed on my mind.
Believe me, I didn’t want to, more than anything I didn’t want to open those boxes and finally, finally, once and for all clean house. My heart felt overwhelmed and sickened at the thought. But I could no longer live with it. So I opened a box, and another box…

And you know what’s the scary part is? I’m not even half-way done. Tomorrow, the saga must continue or else I shall be living in the absolute squalor of this chaos. It will continue. It has to continue.

I’ve said in the past that the state of my room – it’s cleanliness and organization or serious lack thereof – reflects my spiritual state and the state of my heart and mind. Well, this kind of epitomizes all of that: sitting on the edge of disaster. It’s time to clean house, to open up all the boxes of things that I’ve shoved away, that I didn’t want to deal with, that I feared to deal with, afraid that if I opened up the crap and it exploded outward into chaos, I would live in it, unable to put myself back together again…

I’ve started opening up those boxes and there’s no going back. It’s either live in the misery of disaster and rubble, or sit with Jesus in my room and take each thing, one-by-one, bit by bit, and see, where does this fit? It’s time to get rid of the things that have always weighed my heart down and crowded things out. It’s time to open up this space and let my suffocating spirit breathe. It’s time to invite Jesus into the disaster, cause I can’t clean this up on my own. He has to sort it out, clean it up. If I tried, I’d end up on my knees, on the floor, weeping in disrepair, never to stand. Oh, I know I’m often down there, but the difference is that He’s right there with me, with tearstained eyes, a hand that lifts up my face, arms that embrace me, eyes that see beyond the disaster – without disregarding it – to see beauty in the broken.

I’m down there, in desperate weeping amidst the chaos, calling out His name like a life-preserver, hearing faintly the sound of His breathing, so soothing, and the beat of His heart…I am with you. I love you.
Take deep breaths, in and out…in and out…Jesus, stay with my heart, stay beside me…

“God is enough.
God is enough.
He is good.
He will take care of us.
He will satisfy us.
He will get us through this…”
-John Piper-YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTc_FoELt8s&feature=related