-“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish and then the outside also will be clean.”
–Matthew 23: 25-26
-Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
–2 Corinthians 5:17
-Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
–Hebrews 12:1-3
Clunk clunk!…Beep! Beep! Beep!…WHIRRRRR…CRASH! SMASH!
“Oh! Crap on a cracker!! It’s trash day!”
Bleary-eyed and bedheaded, I race out the door in fuzzy slippers and rumpled PJs…
Eeeeeek! my body screeches as the frigid air hits ankles, hands, face…
I lurch down the driveway, dragging a leg, and a bin, behind me…I reach the curb…a panicked head swivel up and down the street…
“Yes! (*fist pump*) Done with half a block to spare!!!”
Is this drama a part of every Tuesday morning?
No, I usually set it all out the night before. But, hey…life happens.
Sometimes trash day sneaks up on us.
I sat on the floor of the therapist’s office, ugly-crying, wailing at top volume, pulling tissues out of the box with steady rapidity as tears and snot poured forth. It was one of those bouts you don’t think will ever end…you stop…over?…and you hiccup and it’s back full force, pounding your abdomen and chest and ribs with cage-match intensity.
I didn’t know it was mental-health trash day. And I didn’t know so much had piled up.
But I knew this was the beginning, a first step to freedom…and I had Help.
Help and Hope.
See, before that day, there was a time that I, too, was saying, “It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine!”
It wasn’t. I wasn’t.
I was trudging along, weighed down by a knapsack stuffed with junk. Something made me stop dead in my tracks, and with a strangled cry of exasperation and pain, I slammed my heavy load to the ground.
“For crying out loud,” I groaned, “Do I really need all this?!”
I started rifling through the contents of my mind and heart and soul: anger, disappointment, bitterness, sorrow, resentment, insults, ridicule, criticism, unjust accusations, trauma, rejection, abandonment, guilt and sin and shame (and that was just the top layer).
I plucked out labels I’d affixed to myself: loser, poser, ugly, unworthy, less than…
“Lies.”
I jumped. “Who is that? I recognize that voice…”
My fingers caught on a cluster of beliefs from the world: when you get this…when you have that…when you…when you…then you’ll be happy…live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse…life sucks and then you DIE…
“Lies.”
“Okay, I know You! What’s going on?”
A reply in verse (John 10:10, to be exact)…
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
I raised my head from my pack and took a good, long look around…and gradually, all of a sudden, I could see.
I was at a Crossroads.
I could slog ahead, with my pile of rubbish, down the road of resignation…
The way of the thief.
Or…
I could leave it all at the foot of the Cross, and venture forth on the path of peace…
The Way of my Savior Jesus Christ.
Trash Day had cometh.
He stood there, His loving gaze upon me.
With gratitude and repentance I knelt down, and surrendered my burden…my debt…my life…to Him.
After a moment that felt like eternity, He gently set me back on my feet. I grabbed His hand, and we began.
Never. letting. go.