A Genesis

For the past few days I have been looking at my home and noticing a lot of areas needing to be organized. My house is usually clean but I feel it needs a gutting. There are toys that need to be thrown away. Happy Meal toys do not need to be kept, right?! Toys needing a goodwill drop off or toys the kids have outgrown and I don't feel like storing so I trash them! About a month ago, this process began with my closet. I gutted it. I have rid myself of shoes and clothes galore. In fact, I don't think I have ever gotten rid of so many things in my life! Yesterday, I organized a closet downstairs for all of our homeschooling stuff and it is so clean, I can actually walk around inside the closet! Then there is the kitchen pantry full of stuff that needs to be organized and cleaned out. Oh and the infamous cabinet full of Tupperware or plastic storage containers. You know the cabinet you never want to open because when you do, everything will fall out?! Let's not forget the junk drawer full of junk. Why do we have junk drawers anyway?

My skin has been crawling. I have literally felt sick to my stomach thinking about the stuff needing organization. Kids clothes needing to be stored away in containers or sold on craigs list or better yet, given away to someone in need! Thinking about all of it just makes my brain hurt. Where do I begin? How do I begin? How do I do all of this and keep up with Josiah's reading and math, laundry, parenting, wifing, ministry, running??! Ugh! Yet I feel like my home is out of order until the very guts of this house have been gutted. No one can really tell because the surface is clean and neat and even pretty. No one sees the closets, right?! So why should it bother me?

The thing is, my home is such a parallel to myself, especially if I am the heart of my home. God is using my home to stir inside of me. A purge has begun. Just as there are many things in my home that need to be cleaned, gutted and done away with, the same goes for the things inside of my mind, even the things inside my heart. The Holy Spirit brought to mind a scripture, Psalm 51:10. You know the scripture Create in me a clean heart...? Yes, that one! Well, I was astonished to see the translation for this verse in The Message. Here's what it says.

Psalm 51:7-15

Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean,
scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life.
Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
set these once-broken bones to dancing.
Don't look too close for blemishes,
give me a clean bill of health.
God, make a fresh start in me,
shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don't throw me out with the trash,
or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile,
put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways
so the lost can find their way home.
Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,
and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
Unbutton my lips, dear God;
I'll let loose with your praise.

This is where I want to be. Clean. Pure. Holy.

And He didn't stop there. Psalm 26:2 says Examine me, God, from head to foot, order your battery of tests. Make sure I'm fit inside and out.

This spoke to me a lot about my spiritual health. I've worked very hard lately on my physical health. I am probably the most fit I have ever been in my life. I'm running, lifting weights, I am about to start a boot camp with an AWESOME personal trainer/friend at our church and he just sent me a menu plan and we are about to go totally healthy in this house with our food. God is showing me how important it is to give my children and husband healthy lunches, dinners and snacks. Jeremy is ready to do it so next week, our home is going to be very different in the food department. Just as I make sure we are all physically fit and healthy, it is just as important to push my family in the same direction spiritually. It's cleansing time in this house!

As I spend this time getting my home in order, gutting out the underneath mess, may I learn to do the same in my life. There is so much I can give to him, so much he is waiting to redeem. Now I have to let Him do the work!