Closets

Do you have some closet doors in your house that are hard to close? You know - the kind you have to put your hip into as you push the door to its frame, hoping it latches.

One of the reasons Todd and I chose the house plan we did when building our home was because of the amount of closet space. Now, I’m not claiming to have a plethora of closet space, or even extra closet space, with kids you can always use more, but I will say that what we have by way of closets is an enormous improvement from what we had in our first home.

Growing up we always shared closets with somebody! It didn’t matter which closet we had, it was always in disarray. I’d go clean my room, attempt to put something in the closet that actually belonged there, unlike many of the other things, and risk my life in the efforts. How many of you actually had (or have!) your closet so stuffed that when you turn the door knob the door actually “pops” open from the pressure on the other side? As the door opens, something tumbles out on you causing you to duck and cover your head. You don’t have to raise your hands, we don’t want to embarrass anybody.

Nothing gets me more fired up than to walk in my daughters’ rooms that they have supposedly been cleaning, only to eye corners of papers, belts, shoe strings, etc. poking out from under the closet doors or in the cracks between the door and the facing. Those situations usually entail a “Susie fit”. They aren’t pretty. There’s a reason we always stood in front of the closet door when our parents came into our rooms, we knew if that closet door was opened, it was all over!

Maybe you have a closet like that now, a closet where, if company came over, you would absolutely die if they opened the door and saw the condition it was in on the inside. Your house looks spotless, but oh – behind closed doors – that’s another story……

Sometimes my life looks that way. It’s cleaned up on the outside, but inside, it’s disheveled and unkempt. I guard it with my very existence hoping that you don’t open that door. Sometimes there’s so much junk on the other side of that door that it pops open when the knob is touched. Then there’s days when I have done the best I can, but there’s still little pieces of junk sticking out under the door and stuck in the cracks, but I go on, in hopes you don’t see those things. Much like at home, on occasion, I have something new that needs to go in my closet and I open the door and it just plain makes me mad because of the condition my closet is in, and I throw a Susie fit. It’s time for some cleaning. It’s time to get rid of some “stuff” that is taking up too much space in my heart. Things that, when I come across them, I wonder why I even hung on to them in the first place, or things that don’t even belong in there.

If I let God help me work through all of the piles of junk and sort out what’s needed, I won’t have anything there that shouldn’t be, which will always leave room for the new things He wants to store inside my heart. In some instances, the cleaning and organizing process of the closet of my heart takes a long time. There’s always a few things that I just don’t know what to do with and He has to help me work through all of that stuff, and sometimes, like my girls, I try to bargain with Him about keeping things. In the end, though, I know He’s right, painful as it may seem.

What are some things that are crammed into the closet of your heart that you don’t want your “company” to see? Is it pride, insecurity, fear, anger, a short-temper, selfishness?

Please share your comments with us, I would like to know more about your struggles, what “junk” you don’t know what to do with, so that I can better understand some things to teach for our upcoming women’s conference. You don’t have to leave your name, you can post anonymously if you would like.

Faithful, loving God, I am thankful that You are so patient with me when I have supposed to have been cleaning my “room” and you find junk sticking out around the closet door. You have never lost your cool with me and thrown a Susie fit with me like I do with my girls. You are always there to teach and guide me as we go through everything, sorting it all out, getting rid of all the excess junk I accumulate through out my day to day experiences. Lord, it amazes me that the simplest of ideas like a messy closet reveals the grandness and depths of your character and I am moved to tears that your mercy and loving kindness are so long-suffering with me. Who am I that a God of perfection would be endeared by my imperfections?

By the way – as I neared the end in typing this post my husband nonchalantly tells me, “You got too many clothes in that closet, the rack is coming off the wall.” Todd had no idea what I was writing about. Does God know the details or what? Guess we know what I’ll be doing this weekend!




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