Stephanie Newton Books

I’ve been cleaning out closets in my house for the last two weeks.  I figure if I do one closet a week for the next six weeks I’ll be all organized.   But as I’m cleaning, I’m wondering how in the world these closets–and I consider the laundry room a closet–got so messy in the first place.  And here’s the real truth:  I’m so busy with “life” that when it comes time to clean house, I shove all the stuff that doesn’t have a place into the closets and shut the door, so I don’t have to look at it.  The house looks clean, right?

Sometimes I think that’s the way my spiritual life is, too.  I know there are areas I need to work on in my life, but because I’m busy, I shove those things into the dark corners of my heart where I don’t have to look at them.   Maybe I look clean on the outside, but as always happens, one day I open the closet door and all that stuff that shouldn’t have a place in my life (anger, impatience, etc)–those things come tumbling out.  I’m reminded in a big way that I need to deal with it.  (And so is whoever is around me that happens to catch the fallout of my messy life).  Worse, it’s so much harder to manage than it would have been if I’d just dealt with it all along.

There are examples all throughout the Bible of really human mess-ups, but those examples are also the best examples of God’s unbelievable grace that he extends to us.  I am not a perfect mother or wife, and definitely not a perfect housekeeper, but I am an imperfect follower of Christ.  And praise God, He is a God of grace.   He picks me up from the mess of my life, dusts me off and sets me on a new path–His path–and guides me to a better way of life, one where He encourages me to open those doors and clean out the dark places.  Not an easy task to be sure–but clean, shiny organized closets (and lives) are the payoff.