Show Me the Layers

Because my last few days have been consumed with one to two tasks per day of "cleaning out the junk" in our house, I really have to continue right there.  It is so strange, when I declared that perhaps 2013 would be the year of cleaning out the junk, something happened, everything shifted and now EVERYTHING seems to be about cleaning!

The daily jobs have ranged from the kitchen pantry to bookshelves to drawers of clothes to my FAVORITE so far, which was THAT drawer in my bathroom vanity.  I think I am talking to the ladies here and I am hoping that a lot of you can relate......

THAT drawer is the one where all the old makeup, makeup remover, lotion, nail polish, bobby pins, hair ties, cotton balls...it's basically my Wal-Greens/CVS drawer....it's that drawer where all those things live within the transition of almost- gone -but not ready- for- the trash- so I'll just throw them in THAT drawer.  THAT drawer is scary.  I've had this particular drawer in every house I've ever lived in....

 I avoid it.  For as long as I can....

As I sat on the bathroom floor today and opened the drawer, I took a deep breath, reached in and began.  The first layer was relatively easy to get rid of because there were very familiar products.  Those go to items when I've run out of something and haven't made it to the store yet. Bottles of facial cleanser that did the job for a day or two, but could never serve a purpose for longer and a lotion that could satisfy the dryness of my skin but that I couldn't stand the smell of.....

The second layer was a little trickier.  Not because I loved the items more but because they had sat in that sad drawer.... unused, dormant and literally oozing with junk.  It was so easy to throw these away but getting through the dried lotion, hardened nail polish, and matted cotton balls was just...... gross!

But the third and FINAL layer, was by far my  favorite.  You know the picture.  All the bottles are gone, you've fought the last bobby pin and the drawer is finally empty.....yet what remains is nasty film on the bottom of the drawer.....the part that has been neglected the most.... the part that hasn't seen the light of the bathroom in a very long time.....the part that needs the most time and care and requires more than just soap and water.  It took some deep, gentle scrubbing but most  importantly...... TIME.

And as I gave that drawer it's due time... He spoke to me....
 As I scrubbed the bottom of that drawer clean and as I write now.....He is speaking....

My love runs deeper than you can imagine.  My blood cleanses what you could never cleanse yourself.  My Holy Spirit is searching the places of you that are unknown even to your own human spirit. How I long to make all things new. Those deepest places take more work and more time than you could ever imagine....

.....but for Me a day is like a thousand years.   

It is NOTHING for Him.  Yet, EVERYTHING for us.

Just as THAT drawer could not clean itself....neither can I......

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."
-Ephesians 3:20-21