You've heard the phrase, "Spring Cleaning" and I'm sure each of us have our own definition of what that means. For me, it has always meant getting everything clean with cleaner. You know the elbow grease type of cleaning where you scrub every inch of the house with Mr. Clean cleaner, Windex and bleach. But this past week, I took it to a whole different level. I started cleaning out every single room in my house. I began by just going into my kids closet and seeing boxes of old clothes that are either too small, or stained, or just not what I want my kids to dress in (a lot of the clothes were given to us by sweet people and some of them just weren't what I felt were appropriate for my children, ie, skulls and cross bones, etc). So I started by getting rid of them and just cleaning out boxes of old papers, bottles that I used to use for flowers and other random pieces of useless stuff. I took out about two bags of clothes and probably three boxes of stuff that we just didn't need. Then I moved to my room. My room was a wreck! Laundry piled on the floor, underneath the bed had those roll-away containers with stuff from when I was at CFNI, and my closet was unorganized with clothes, pillows and shoes. So I started going through all of that. I think we probably gave away about five bags of clothes and took out at least two bags of useless stuff. Even my bathroom had stuff in there that we just didn't need or use, or it was old toothpaste containers, or things along those lines. We rearranged our kids room and took apart a crib we are saving for our youngest daughter that converts into a bed. We sorted through toys and got rid of the broken ones and gave away the excess of unused stuffed animals. I am pretty sure by the time we were done cleaning, which we started on Saturday and finished today (besides the kitchen, which we have yet to do), we had taken a whole rooms worth of stuff out to the trash or to a give-away place.
While I don't consider myself one of those hoarders who end up on a reality show, I would consider myself someone who holds onto stuff way too easily and too much. Anything that holds even the slightest memory or sentiment, I held onto. Anything that might be "important" someday, or something that I just didn't throw in the trash because I was lazy, it was in my house, like bills, job papers, school papers, and so on. You know, just the littlest of things end up being a pile of useless stuff.
Tonight, while my two oldest children were splashing around in their bubble bath, I began to think about how I had dusted my house, mopped, vacuumed every room, placed each teddy bear in it's place and how good it felt. It was one of those moments where I took a deep breath and sighed in utter contentment. I'm one of those women who love Pinterest, but never hope to have the Pinterest perfect home. But I think I have gotten very well near it this week.
Now, you're asking why I wrote all this out and why I felt to give a blow-by-blow account of my messy self and how I cleaned it all up. This is personal and I am not pointing fingers at anyone else who has a messy home. This is just something that dawned on me, and I felt for myself. My home has been a reflection of my heart and the status of where it stood. The past 10 years have been very messy for me. I started out with some heavy situations with a church I was involved with. I ended up leaving, but in the wake of leaving, I experienced heartbreak, distrust of every single person around me, shaken to the core of my being not knowing if God was real and if He was, why didn't He rescue me from the pain of leaving everything and everyone I ever knew or loved. I experienced "the world" for the first time, and was exposed to movies, dating, guys, pant wearing (I grew up wearing dresses my entire life), short hair, church with all sorts of people, judgement for who I was, and so on. I then experienced the confusion and rebellion against God, not caring who He was or what He wanted from me. I left God. I got pregnant. I got married. I had kids. I didn't have friends and pretty much still don't, and church issues. I stopped reading the Bible. I stopped praying. I stopped living. I stopped hoping and believing in myself, those around me, and most of all, God. I gave up! My life turned to depression, anger, frustration, and even had the occasional suicidal thoughts. (Don't worry. I got professional help). Life was over for me and the only thing that kept me going was my children and my husband. In all of this, I let everything go. I didn't clean the way I should. I didn't keep my home the way I was raised to. I became a slob and slovenly. I am not proud of who I became. But I had no will to do anything! TV was my outlet to just zone out and de-stress. I couldn't wait for my husband to get home from work so I could collapse into bed and sleep. That is how I lived my life for at least two years. I hid it well. I would post nice, happy posts on Facebook and Instagram. I would paste a smile on my face and act like everything was ok. But deep in my heart, the pain ran deep. I felt like I was suffocating from the hurt, the fear, the insecurity, the pain, the overwhelming depression.
But recently, I began going to bed and opening my Bible app on my phone and just reading a few scriptures here and there. I started reading Christine Caine's, "First Things First" that comes to my email every morning (you can sign up too! It's free). I started turning on Christian music and listening to it at least for 30 minutes to an hour every day. It started freeing my mind. I started to have more peace in my heart and through all of that, as I got my heart it order, my home began to take order as well. As I started climbing out of the depression pit, my home began to take on a cleaner look.
I am nowhere near perfect. I have not arrived. I will not "arrive" until I see Jesus' face in Heaven. My home will still get messy...I mean, seriously, I have three kids! There are still going to be sticky peanut butter hands touching my walls. There are going to be cute little shoes that track mud through my freshly mopped floors. Toys are going to be spread across my living room carpet and I'm sure I'll step on one of those lego blocks again. There will be water splashed all over my shiny mirrors and milk will get spilled on my wooden dining table. There will be days I will go to bed with laundry on my floor and trash not taken out. I might not get the dishes all done a few days. But what I will have is Jesus. I will have His word and I will have the music He inspired artists with. I will have peace because I have a relationship with Him and I will have joy, knowing that I am His and He is mine. I will have confidence that He has made me beautiful (even if I do have an extra 30 lbs hanging around on my body after having three kids) and that I am a powerful lioness, created to do His work. I will have assurance that I am going to do His will, changing the world one day at a time. I will depend on His love to guide me and teach me. I will do my best to raise world changers, like Ruth in the Bible, or Elizabeth, or James.
I am excited about what God is going to do and what He has already done in my life. Are you excited? Are you ready? Take my hand, take someone's hand and let's go do this thing called Life!
