Clean Out the Closet Clutter

I love to entertain. I enjoy inviting my friends and family over. Sometimes I plan things, and sometimes people just stop by. Both are fine with me.

When I want to have friends over, I plan ahead wait until the last minute and I clean up start stuffing.

My daughter and I grab all the life that’s lying around. The shoes, the jackets, the dirty dishes, the wrappers, the backpacks, the phone chargers, two weeks worth of unsorted mail and–lest we forget–the laundry buffet.

You know what I’m talking about. All that incidental, accumulating, I’ll-get-to-it-later stuff. We start out putting it away, but we usually run out of time and end up stuffing it.

Then we grab the vacuum, the rag, and the toilet brush and get busy. We aim for things to look all Pinterest-y like this:

One time we planned ahead and invited our friends to our house for lunch. She was battling cancer, but most people didn’t know it by looking at her. She was upbeat and radiant, even though on the inside she was so, so sick. She wore her pretty wig and painted up eyebrows, even though underneath all of her hair had fallen out. She inspired me.

They sat at our table and ate, and she looked around somewhat defeated. I had never seen her defeated, but people get real when they sit at your table. I like that.

“Julie,” she said, “your house looks so nice. I wish I could keep our house this neat and clean.”

My heart sunk. She was comparing to the ideal, not the real. (We girls are really good at that.) I knew that just that morning my family and I were rushing around spiffy-ing things up. Cleaning up the muddy paw prints and dog hair and the laundry buffet and the sink full of dishes and the toilet seat and…

I had invited her over to encourage her and give her a boost only to make her feel like she was a less-than because my house was straight. In reality, just hours before she arrived, it was a wreck.

I grabbed her hand and said, “Come with me.”

We walked a few steps down the hall to the closet. I opened it and stuff fell out. She lit up and burst into laughter. “That, my friend, THAT makes me feel a whole lot better!”

I opened my bedroom door. (I think of it as the Last Frontier, because it’s always the last place to be cleaned it usually has the door shut when company comes.) I then opened not one but TWO kitchen junk drawers and reaffirmed her thank-God-I’m-not-the-only-one feeling.

Just like that–one closet, one bedroom, two drawers–and her feeling of inadequacy was gone. She sat back down much more relaxed knowing that she had seen the real me, the one she could identify with. Not the one that looked like she had it all together. (Though I’m certain she appreciated my efforts to vacuum the dog hair and clean the bathroom.)

The real me. The one that shuts off the vacuum and wheels it into the closet and shuts the door hours seconds before guests arrive.

The real me. The one that has clutter in the closet.

The real me. The one who on the outside might look like she has it all together but tucks away her mess where no one can see.

I was happy to share my mess with her that day so that she’d feel less like a mess herself.

Yes, we all have those get-to-it-later spaces where we tuck the yucky stuff. (Well, most of us do anyway. Some people have that organization gift and keep everything in its place. Those houses make me twitch inspire me to get it together.)

But what about those other closets? The recessed places of our minds where dark thoughts reside, the deep places of our hearts where secret sins live. And what about our bodies? Those invisible areas like cholesterol-filled veins and inflamed joints that attest to unhealthy eating and exercise habits.

Yes, when we look closely, we find yuck.

The yuck of anxious thoughts and worry over things out of our control. The yuck of unforgiveness or jealousy. The yuck of self-doubt and paralyzing fear. The yuck of wanting what others have. The yuck of seeing the worst in other people instead of finding their best. The yuck of an unresolved past.

We all have it. We can tuck it away and hide it for awhile, but eventually that closet door will open and stuff will come tumbling out.

Maybe it tumbles out in angry words or aggression or gossip. Maybe it tumbles out in panic attacks or bouts of depression. Maybe it tumbles out in undesirable lab results or clogged arteries that will require drastic measures to fix if we don’t change our habits.

All the stuffing and the shoving. All the “I’ll deal with it later” conversations we have with ourselves.

Sooner or later, we have to deal with the mess.

We eventually have to get that shoved-in-and-about-to-explode closet in order.  God wants that for us, because that’s where He looks. Into our “closet.”

“The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

(1 Samuel 16:7)

He wants me to examine myself with those same eyes, because He wants me to let go of the clutter. Jesus talks very plainly to people, like me, who act like they have it all together.

You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead man’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

(Matthew 23:27-28)

I have to decide what’s worthy of keeping and what needs to be thrown out. God will help me with that if I ask like David did in Psalm 139: 23-24.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Just like I walked with my friend to that cluttered closet down the hall and flung it open to show her my mess, I’m doing the same with me. I want God to expose and expel my clutter. To replace lies with truth.

I’m trashing my tendency to grab an unhealthy snack and instead prepare a healthy meal. I’m throwing out my inclination to measure myself by what other people think of me and replace it with how God sees me.

With His help my anxious thoughts can turn to trust, my negative attitude can look for the good, my distraction to focus, my disarray to organization, my tardy will turn to punctuality. My winging-it to preparedness.

It’s time to get real. The closet doors are open. I’m clearing the clutter.

I won’t strive for perfection. I will move in the right direction.

And it’s going to be the best year yet.