Housecleaning

My Growth group is currently going through a study by Rick Warren called Life's Healing Choices. It's all about discovering freedom from "your hurts, hang-ups & habits".  We're going through the Beatitudes and looking at things like admitting need, letting go and making changes. It's not a support group - my group is a wonderful collection of people who really care about eachother.

The last chapter we went through was Coming Clean, focusing on the pure of heart. Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see God. - Matthew 5:8

The study suggests taking a moral inventory. Search me, Oh 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. - Psalm 139:23-24. It's basically as frightening as it sounds. They kind of provide a chart to fill in, mostly focusing on people and actions that have hurt you, how the damage has played out in your life, and what your responsibility or part was in the event. We talked about making specific plans and setting a date to make sure we did this for ourselves. We planned on finding a person who we trusted completely to share our hearts and moral failings with.

Then we went home. And I forgot.

I forgot until last Monday when my group got together for lots of wonderful food and fun. One woman mentioned the written moral inventory and how she wasn't sure if she was going to do it.

I debated. And I went home and got busy doing other things.

Finally last night I decided I should probably spend some time reading the chapter over again and making my list. I'm not sure if I was doing it for myself, my relationship with God, or just so I could tell my group I did my homework, but in this case all motives bring you down the same road.

So first I did all the things I do before I have to do something I don't want to do. I checked facebook about 4.5 times. I cooked dinner. I cleaned the house. I cleaned some more. I went through every piece of paper on my desk.

Do you see where this is going? I didn't get too deep into the dust rags before I noticed the analogy. Housecleaning. You can vacuum around the furniture (and large purses or potted plants, for that matter) or you can drag the arm chair out of the way to clean behind it. You can sit down at your desk to dust around the mounds of books you won't be able to read until you graduate or you can go through every birthday card you've saved for years, every receipt for the gas, the groceries, the sweater that was much too overpriced, and you can throw them away because you don't want so many possesions when you have to move in a couple months. Moving has been on my mind, and I am getting rid of a lot of things. Purging, I called it last night. My roommate thought I was referring to eating disorders and I almost got a lecture, but I'm trying to get rid of all the things I don't want, need, or use over the next five months. It's cleansing, really, (and it allows more space in your closet to go shopping). It's a little exhausting - this mental, spiritual, physical, emotional purge. It's a work in progress - my closet and my moral inventory still have a ways to go - but I'm looking forward to getting rid of the clutter. I want to realize what I need, what I've never even wanted, and what I have only because it's convenient or I never considered life without it.

I'm looking for a new way of looking at things.

I bet the view is great.