Picking Up

      We are having Community Group here tonight, and it follows that I should clean my house and do some serious picking up.  Not because I am faking it for these people that I love, but mainly because it needs to happen anyway, and having people over is always a good excuse to get things back the way they should be.  John especially likes things to be picked up - it helps him feel better about life.  That is another really good reason for me to pick up.


(side note: two kids with sippy cups seems to make all the sippy cups in our house breed.  they are inescapably everywhere I look.)

Which got me thinking about life.  Years ago, when I was a counselor at Kanakuk Kamp, I remember our kamp director telling us that if we walked past a piece of trash on the ground, it was like walking past sin in our lives.  Needless to say, the camp was spotless almost all the time, and I have never forgotten that line.  As I have been picking up my house, I have been wondering what sin in my heart needs to be picked up.  What I am walking past everyday and ignoring?




      That piece of chalk has been sitting there for weeks, and I have not moved it.  I have actually stopped seeing it, even though it clearly does not belong on my kitchen counter.  The study we are doing at church is all about looking at our children's hearts, but I don't want to stop there.  I want to also be examining my own heart.  What am I letting blend into the countertops of my heart?  Pride, selfish ambition, judgement - these things are parts of myself that are easy to walk past or gloss over.
      I need the Lord to give me his eyes to see into my heart and the hearts of my children.  Sometimes the messes are easy to spot.

But, much of the time, they are more subtle.  Here's hoping for more surrendering.  Less of me and more of him.  I want to pick up my heart and life, not just my house.