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Counting Down...Houses and Hearts



Three days and counting!  Soon I will be counting the hours!!  For what you ask?  Until we move into our house here in this new town!  We have been staying in a temporary rental for the last 2 and half months… complete with air mattresses, playpens,  and paper plates!  It’s not so much the living out of a suitcase for weeks that bothers me.  It’s more the being unable to really settle in… and well, I admit the little critters that seem to own this house bother me just a bit.  And maybe the dirty carpet does, too.

Ok, so true confessions of a “pocket perfectionist” (i.e. I have areas I am a perfectionist about but others I am completely disorganized!)…  I can’t stand grunge!  You know the kind when your children’s feet turn black from crawling across the carpet despite your cleaning efforts.  It has made me a wee bit crazy.  Just a tad.  Ok, I admit, I try to stay gone as much as possible, but when I am here, I am cleaning!!

And the air doesn’t work very well so you have to keep all the blinds shut to keep the place from overheating.   You have to keep the light out.   Dark and dirty is how it feels despite my cleanings.   So I run.  I try to stay busy.  Distracted.  I go to stores or to the park.  I want to be anywhere but in this place that I just can’t seem to make clean.

So I avoid the house.

And I avoid the heart.

When the pain or the gunk builds up inside sometimes it is easier to run.  Away.  So much easier than to deal with the darkness that creeps in over time.  Or the residue of pain that is layered about.  It is uncomfortable.  Uncertain.  Despite our best efforts, we just can’t make it all disappear.  So we run.  And we stay busy.  Secretly, purposefully distracted.

But eventually the busyness loses its appeal.  The frantic pace no longer charms.  And we can hear Him calling.  Calling us to come away.  To let Him into that house of the heart where only the light of His love will cleanse and only the healing that flows from Jehovah Rapha, the God who Heals,  can sweep away the wreckage left behind by mortal wounds.  Wounds that the enemy of our souls meant to destroy us, but that Jesus transforms into a display of His resurrection power. 

His Ruah, his breath fills us with Life.  And I need it.  Every day.  My house and my heart get dirty every day.  Why do I run?  Why the distractions?  I forget so quickly that His arms are holding me.  Even then.  When I am dirty.  Especially then.

And He waits so patiently.

Whispering to us to come.

To slow down.

To invite Him in with His cleansing light.

His breath of Life.

Today.

Not in three days.

No need to count the hours.

It is this hour that counts.
           





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