Personal Junkyard

Last Semester (Jan-March) I was part of a Tuesday Morning Ladies Bible Study entitled Walls of Our Heart by Connie Weisel. It was a very enlightening time discussing how when we're hurt by others, if we don't effectively deal with it, we end up building walls around our hearts. The two main types of walls are walls of rejection and walls of rebellion. Without God's intervention, no amount of counseling, self-help book reading, or "positive thinking" will completely remove the wall and the underlying pain. It was an excellent study - incredibly practical while still being incredibly biblically-based. (You can download the actual study for free under the women's ministry link of this website: www.silverdome.org)

This past Tuesday we started a new study (March-May) - You Want Me to Forgive Who? .... Notice a theme here? I don't think that forgiveness is an area that I'm currently struggling with. But these are good topics to begin to learn about BEFORE they're needed! So, I'm taking lots of notes and holding on to them until the time when I will inevitably need them.

I was thinking this morning..... All too often we (you and I) don't deal with our broken-down, rusted-out junk. It just sits there, with weeds growing up around it while we ignore it, pretending it's not there. It can sit there for years until something finally happens to force us to face it and do something about it.
So often we think that the weeds we've allowed to grow so tall hide the junk so it's not noticeable to others. How silly of us! Even if people don't see what's hiding underneath, they can still see the ugly weeds of hardness, coldness, unforgiveness, meanness, anger, rebellion, bitterness, fear, depression, jealousy, loneliness, irritability, low self-esteem, hostility, conceit, wild mood swings, an attitude of superiority, stubbornness, being controlling/ domineering, resentful, unteachable, critical, or manipulative. The weeds are ugly enough themselves!

The process of looking inward at some of the ugliness in our hearts or our past can be painful - sometimes almost unbearable. But it is necessary! The longer we wait to do this form of "spring cleaning" the harder it will be, and the longer it will take. But if we're going to function and be a healthy person inside and out, it's necessary! I've been spending a lot of time in thought and prayer recently trying to find any such "ugliness" inside of me, and asking God to help heal any that's hiding in there.

We need to take the time to let God help remove the painful and ugly junk that's hiding behind the uncontrollable weeds, and then put on some thick gardening gloves while He helps us pull up the weeds by the root also! Just mowing them down isn't enough - they keep growing back! I really, really hate spiders (and bugs of any kind) - the cleaner my house the fewer there are hiding in any corners. It's time to spring clean the cobwebs of my heart/mind/soul. Don't let yours turn into a junkyard either - join me!