Mrs Starr Tharp
Pastor's Wife
New Hope Baptist Church
Independence, MO
GO BENEATH THE SURFACE
Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the WHOLE heart. Psalm 119:2
Don’t you just HATE clutter?! I DO!! My mother was a keeper and I am a tosser! I would love to adopt the minimalist mindset. I will even sit and google “tiny houses” – they intrigue me! For years when our kids were growing up, the Fly Lady’s baby steps were my best organization tool! I loved that 15 min boogie fling every night! YAY! Let’s all get up and “THROW THINGS AWAY!!” But then my kids grew up, got married and started homes of their own. Amazingly though, I’m still finding things tucked hither and yon that belong to them. I recall a phone conversation with my 30 yr old daughter the other day: Me: “Hey there, how’s it going? So…. What are your plans for this telescope that we bought you for Christmas 7 years ago?!” LOL I moved it to the kitchen so she could take it home, google it’s worth and possibly sell it. We all lead busy ministry lives, so it’s still here. I moved it to the garage yesterday!
My pastor/hubby has been laid up since he underwent a serious foot surgery 3 weeks ago, so I took a leave of absence from my part time job to devote 24/7 care to him and his foot. For the first several days, I just enjoyed the time off and would sit around sipping coffee with him and shooting the breeze! But after a week or two, it hit me, that I should be taking advantage of the time off, to dig into some much needed projects and do some deep cleaning! Beckoning to me from “beneath” have been several closets. Sometimes I think closets are of the devil! Where does everything get shoved when you are expecting last minute company? The closet!
My closets have been filled with clothes that fit 20 lbs ago, cast off home decos that I intended to sell at “some” garage sale at “some” point in the universe! Then there were Verizon gift bags holding the cardboard containers from several past Verizon phones, along with all the little, teeny, tiny booklets and papers that can only be read with super human eyes. Verizon has a way of making you think you should never throw those things away (kind of like the tag on the mattress! One of these days I’m going to cut that tag off, and sit and wait to see what happens!) Also in the closet were used gift bags (that I use again), half used rolls of gift paper, old duffel bags, hats, shoes, the list goes on and on. A year or so ago my oldest grandson Darren, was here visiting w/family as they passed through on the deputation trail. He’s 9. We were in our home office. He was puttering as I did some work on the computer. He happened to look in the closet that is filled w/ random boxes of “stuff.” These last several boxes got shifted to the back burner when we moved in here nearly 4 years ago. All the basics were unpacked, but these boxes were filled with things that I didn’t know what to do with at the time. So…. Rather than set aside time to deal with it all, in the spare closet they went and stayed! Out of sight, out of mind. Right? He says to me, “MooMoo, what is all this STUFF in here?!” Ugh! I made small talk and grown up excuses about why I had so many unused items taking up valuable space in that closet. He says in his innocent 9 yr old voice, “Wow, can you imagine how much ROOM you’d have in here if you threw all this stuff away?!”
I chose to start on the closet in our guest room. Pretty awful that even the “extra” closet held an overflow of hoarded, useable to someone, but unused by me, items, that have served no good purpose in at least 2 years. We are 2 middle aged, empty nesters. Why do we have so much STUFF?! I emptied that closet, sorted, tossed, repurposed, gave away all that I could. Wow! That felt good! So I moved to the coat closet in the entry way. Since my hubby has to keep his foot up most of the time, and the closet was in the room he was sitting in, he got to enjoy the process! I’ll never forget the look on his face as I was emptying that closet and I turned to him and asked, “Did you realize you have FOUR leather jackets in here?! Do you
wear ALL of these?!” Have you ever tried to get rid of any of your hubby’s things?! Men don’t like it when you try to toss their things. So I refocused on downsizing my own batch of hoarded coats.
Then…. I moved to the dreaded bedroom closet! This one was the worst, the most painful and took the most time and thought. It’s the closet I use the most, am the most familiar with. Halfway into it, I kept asking myself WHY have I kept all of this stuff? I was mostly finished except for sorting through and organizing my shoes. With joy, I looked at the organized, less filled closet, and then sighed as I looked down at the haphazard pile of shoes. I was tired and tempted to quit. I can finish that part later, I thought. Even though I was exhausted, I just couldn’t leave the job unfinished. I knew I wouldn’t get to it for a while if I walked away. It was now or never! So I tackled the shoe pile. I was so happy to have it all completely done! I stood there looking at big overflowing totes of clothes & shoes to give away and a couple more totes that held random items for our neighborhood Spring garage sale.
I felt pretty good about myself to have finally accomplished so much neglected work. My closets were emptier and actually had room for things that were good and useable, or of value to me. It will be so nice to just reach in, and easily find my useable things, without having to step over or sort through so much clutter and unused “stuff.”
I began to look around the rooms that I had cleaned out closets in. Upon closer inspection, I realized that I was even neglecting surface work. I thought I was a “pretty good housekeeper!” I mean when people come to visit in our home, they don’t walk into filth everywhere. But oh, I sure wouldn’t want them looking in my closets or on top of my bookcases or in my basement storage room. What I realized was, because I had so badly neglected the “deep” cleaning, that I had also started neglecting the “surface” cleaning! Not purposely, mind you, because remember, I’m a “good” housekeeper! It just got to the point that I didn’t “see” it anymore.
We do that with our hearts, don’t we? He blesses those that seek Him with the WHOLE heart, but we stubbornly only give Him portions. Because deep down, we know the parts we haven’t surrendered to Him are filled with hoarded sins like doubt, fear, laziness, rebellion, disobedience, bitterness. And when we hoard sins like that in our heart, pretty soon we don’t even realize that the surface is starting to look a little dim. (My Father in law used to say, “What’s down in the well, comes up in the bucket!”) Maybe our Bible reading & prayer time has been laid aside. Our brow may be furrowed most of the time. Or we’re sullen and don’t talk or smile like we used to. We are frequently too busy for serving the Lord in needy ministries. We don’t stay for fellowship, but leave after the last Amen. Looking pretty dim there.
It’s no secret. We’re not hiding what we really are from people, they can see it. But we’re especially not hiding it from God. He SEES all the areas of our hearts that are so filled with clutter and rubbish. Just confess it and get rid of it. Besides how can he fill you with Himself when you are already so full of other things? We sing, “Fill my cup Lord” but He can’t because there is no room for Him. Go beneath the surface and do some deep cleaning. Make room in your cluttered heart for things that are good and useable to the Master. You’ll feel so much better and HE will be pleased with your life!
