A Clean Heart

My agenda this morning included cleaning our home. My area of focus was purposed to clean the kitchen and downstairs bathroom. These areas really needed a good clean.

Now, I am the mother of (three) little boys and a wife of a big guy too. Those of you that only have girls can either laugh and dismiss what I am about to reveal. Those of you that have boys, you know what I am talking about! Boys have this part of their body, which one would think, would make it easier to control the stream of urine that is output from their bodies. Well, this is just simply not necessarily true. Getting the urine to go where it is intended to go without going anywhere else is a learned, trained, and very long process to achieve successfully. At least this is true in our house. I pray that those of you that have boys will back me up a little on this please! And on a side note, if you have any tricks in this department that have worked in your house, send them my way!

So, on this rainy Thursday, while everyone else is gone from our little house, I began to tackle the job of cleaning this area of my home. I was armed with my cleaning products and I had begun the first part of cleaning the bathroom. I had quite the task ahead of me on this particular day. Perhaps life had kept us so busy on the spin cycle that I didn't realize just how dirty my home had really become. As I began this huge task, I thought to myself, "Wow, I have really overlooked the nooks and crannies of where these droplets of urine hide!" I know this is disgusting but bear with me. I started to clean the toilet with usual tools and cleaning products. I was not satisfied with the results so far. So next, I got a bigger and more powerful tool, the trusty old toothbrush. I start scrubbing into the areas that I just simply couldn't reach with the gloves,toilet brush, cleaner, paper towels, and other items that I was using. It was like magic, the yuck started coming clean and before I knew it the bathroom was much cleaner and pleasing to my eyes once again. Not to mention de-germed! All of those little spots where the urine had been hiding were once again clean. That's when it hit me. Well, God hit me with one of His lessons of love.

I know, some of you reading this must think that I am a little abnormal by now. I don't care. I mean who speaks of lessons using toilets and pee? Really? You see, when you invite God into your heart and you have a relationship with him on a daily basis, this is what He does. God shows up and uses all kinds of ways to get after your heart. He uses ways that you and I would otherwise not even think of in terms of human to human relationships. So yeah. God used my cleaning hour to pull up his chair and to offer me a little heart to heart time. I find, more and more, that when my heart is open to his voice, He surely enlightens me to his wisdom on things in my earthly life. I always walk away from these experiences with such peace and also with a lift in spirit so high that I wonder how it is I would ever function here on this earth without Him in my life. I just love when God does that.

My heart has been going through the valleys again lately with various things in my life. I am human. I am weak in the flesh of my body. I can see signs where I have grown more emotionally intelligent over time with the way I seek comfort from the pain in my heart and soul. After all, this has been a slow process and has taken years to get to this point in my life. I have also reacted to the stress in similar ways as most of people, by allowing the hustle bustle of life to be that distraction. In addition, I have also done what I have done before, I have kept it all bottled up inside without sharing a word with anyone, not even God. I have surely prayed over these very situations and on behalf of some very special and dear folks that are truly in desperate need of prayer. I have petitioned our Lord for healing, for peace in the hearts of many, for the answers/way out from circumstances to be shown, etc. I have given thanks and praise for both answered prayers and also for the daily gifts and blessings that are in my everyday life. Here is what I haven't done. I failed to come to our Lord to ask for his protection to guard my heart against the things of this world. I failed to ask for his peace, strength, and wisdom, especially to see the things that I do have the power to change and what I do not, you know like that good old Serenity prayer. So while I feel good about my prayer time on behalf of others, I sometimes forget to ask God to also include protection over my own heart. A part of me felt selfish really but I have since discovered that I need to include that prayer.

We live in a world where bad things are happening all around us to really good folks. One can wonder when is trouble going to arrive at my doorstep next? I wonder sometimes when the next really bad thing will happen again? This is surely no way to live. The circumstances around us that we see others face and suffer through can consume us all with fear if you look around enough. Fear is not from God. It is something He does not want for us to feel. I need to get more into the practice of emptying the burdens that I carry in my heart and trying harder to leave them there at the foot of the cross. I need not take away from that prayer time the helplessness that I have been. I am not always powered with the tools for change circumstances aroudn me, but I am always powered with the ability to love, and to show that love to others in my path of life. When following that call to love, amazing things can and do always happen!

I have continued to seek the answers to the "Why's" of this life and that question is almost never a good question to wrestle with in one's soul. I have not come before him to fully empty my heart from the "Filth" of this world. I have not fully trusted my hurts to God for him to take care and have control. On the contrary, I have attempted to do that all on my own. One would think that I would have learned by now. I have chosen to approach this weakness of my flesh almost as if, I am saying, if I just stay busy enough, I just won't have to think about it. Right now in the present time, that might work for awhile, but guess what, those feelings are really just pooling up and collecting one another in the distraction of everyday life. It doesn't work in the long run. These feelings if left, will find you and creep up on you. When they they are left still and dormant in your heart and deep within your soul, they will creep back to gain your full attention at some point later in time. When they do, they will have grown in power and will have taken over more places of your heart where God wants only peace to reside.

As I was cleaning, I was reminded that God has all the tools needed to clean up my heart. Even my best tools and cleaning products if you will, pale in comparison to what He is capable of. He has that little toothbrush thing that can reach far beyond measure where I as a human soul can go. Why do I try to handle the things of this world all on my own, time and time again? Why do I think that I can handle it all by myself instead of turning it All over to Him on a continual basis? God loves me so much that He took time to teach me or gently remind me of His supernatural power while I was scrubbing a toilet of all things. God reminded me that He loves me and wants to help me. What He wants most is that intimate relationship with me. And you too, for that matter. He wants us to bring the trivial things and the big things of our life to Him and often. God wants nothing more than to impart His wisdom and His cleaning tools and cleaners upon us if we would just let him. You know he doesn't promise us that by cleaning with us, that he will take away that painful circumstance that we face. What does he promise? He promises that he already knows the beginning, the middle and the end of the story. He promises good things to come to those who believe in him. He promises that the things of this world are falling but His Kingdom that He has created for us, is pure and without the pain from this world. He promises that as we must face difficult times on this earth that He will be with us always, to love us. If we invite His presence, He will impart to us His is supernatural cleaning products and tools to help guide our way. God will provide us with our needs just at the right time. I have seen this happen so many times. Just when we thought as humans we had reached the end of the road or were at a stopping point, God came in with a whole other plan in mind and made a way for things to happen that were not otherwise possible.

Next, I moved onto the kitchen and there were some stubborn places on the walls and the floor too for that matter. Have you ever used a Magic Eraser? I love that tool. You know what, I guess looking back, God thought I was being stubborn headed on this particular morning. He hit me with a second dose. He gently showed me that He can get into places in my heart that are so closed off to the rest of this world. He can get into the places of my heart that I don't want anyone to see. The best part is, that when He gets there, to those ugly, dark places of my heart, the ones that I worked so hard to protect, the ones where I have failed in my own human efforts to clean up, those places where the nooks and crannies hide far away from where I want others to see, He sees them, and He loves me anyway. Did you catch that? God loves me anyway, even with all of my dirt! God has just the thing that I need to clean my heart and make it pure. When I clean up this heart, then there is room for peace. Yes, the very thing that I am trying to create by doing things my way. This true and real peace can really only be found in God. You see He has tools for each and every one my problems in life. He has tools that little me knows nothing about. God has tools that I cannot even see, like my toothbrushes and magic erasers. Remembering how simple my cleaning became with the right tools, I was reminded to seek God and allow Him to choose the right tools for the job in my prayer time.

I am certainly not suggesting in any way that when you seek a relationship with God through some of the most difficult times in life, that the difficult issue will just get cleaned right up, go away, and be resolved. Yes, God can and does do that sometimes. He has done just that time and time again. We have all heard these inspiring stories of how God made miracles happen here on earth right before our eyes. Jeremy's story is proof that sometimes, the answers that we seek in this life, that healing, or resolution that we seek, is just not found on this side of heaven. Sometimes, the answers aren't the answers that we want so desperately in our own hearts. Sometimes that cleaning process, even with His tools, still hurts deep down to the very core of your soul. It can rock your understanding and faith as you know it, but hold on to Him most at that point, the cleaning, is in process. I do know without a doubt that when God's will does not align with our own desires, it does not mean that He does not love us or that he did not hear the pleas and cries of our heart. One day, this whole story will be shown to us and we will see how God worked it all together for our greater good. God sees All things where as we see a limited perspective. God is weaving together the masterpiece of our lives. I am here, still hurting, still in disbelief that this really happened to me, still seeking the answers to the WHY?, still missing my sweet baby, still praying for resolution to my hurts, still lacking the understanding desired, and still broken in many places. I am also still in process and under all of that hurt, I know that I am still loved. I know and feel God's presence in my life everyday. I choose to trust that if He loves me this much, then He does have my best interests at heart, even when what I see with my human eyes doesn't make any sense or is painful to see. I will choose to trust that one day I will see how these events have all had their purpose to fulfill and that the outcome of that purpose was for good.


So today I learned that we just need to use the right tools for the jobs of life. For me, using the right tools for the jobs means that I need to empty my whole heart before God more often and not let the nooks and crannies grow into big ugly places that begin to take over my thoughts in ways that are harmful to me. When I turn to God with my whole heart, He will empower me with the right tools for the job. If nothing else, He will impart His peace over me. When the yuck areas of my heart are all cleaned out and purified, they are then protected from evil. These areas will not grow and fester into areas of fear and doubt.

Dear Lord,
I am humbled before you and give all the praise to you for the lesson in love that you showed me today as I was cleaning. While I could see earthly dirt, you were working on my heart so that I could see things from a whole different perspective. You want to show me things that without your presence I would not otherwise see and understand of this world. You Lord, have all the tools that I need to survive and thrive in this fallen world. How much simpler my life would be if I would only trust in you to work things out for my greater good. I ask you to be with me and continue to lead me and guide me along the path of your will for my life. I invite your presence to fill my heart and soul to fulfill your will within each and every day that I am gifted and blessed to live on this earth. I wish to lead a life that brings glory to your name and one that seeks to turn other hearts toward your eternal kingdom where we can live with you Lord in the perfect and pure place that you have created for us all.
Amen

Funny, I will no longer feel disgust when I see the urine in places on our toilets from time to time. Instead, I will choose to remember this love lesson from my heavenly Father delivered straight to my heart on this rainy Thursday. When I see urine I will think of the filth in my heart and I will remind myself that with the help of God, I can release it all and allow him to create in a me clean heart, one equipped to love, to serve, and to be filled with his divine peace.