God has been teaching me so many heart lessons as I deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. As you know from my previous posts, the shingles on my roof never bonded so they peeled apart and flew away oh-so-easily. The ridge vent also peeled away and my roof leaked like a sieve. The attic in my house is full of wet, stinky, mildewy stuff. Gobs of matted pink insulation that used to be fluffy and odorless now is clumpy and stinky. Eeew.
Meanwhile, down in the second and first floors, HEPA air filters are chugging away, trying to filter the stink from the air I breathe. And they're helping. To a point that I can tolerate living here. But nothing's really going to clear the air until I deal with the issues in the attic. I am SO not looking forward to that. Along with a contractor to remove all the stinky wet insulation, and put in fresh insulation, Delighted Husband and I will have to sort through all our stuff and cull out the water damaged pieces, photograph them and submit them for replacement and throw them out. We'll then have to decide what stuff is worth keeping and rebox the keepable stuff in undamaged new boxes. This is gonna take a while. It will be sweaty, stinky, so-not-fun work.
Lucky for me I have a bit of a reprieve because we can't deal with any of the stink in the attic until a good boundary is restored between our house and the world by having a new roof installed. But eventually, we must deal with our stinky stuff.
Wow does this remind me of therapy.
I could spray air freshener in my house every day, but until I deal with the rot in the locked-off room in the attic, ain't nothin' gonna change.
I suppose this is why Jesus said he was empowered to bind up the brokenhearted, to tear down and to build. Because tearing out the rot and brokenness is the way to get wholeness and healing. Bring it on.
Love,
SW
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A scene from C.S. Lewis's "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (probably my favorite of all the Narnia books) just popped into my head while reading this. It's not quite directly analogous, because it deals more with redemption rather than sanctification, but hey, let's not be picky about the theological stuff, right? Anyway:
Through his own greed and selfishness, Eustace has managed to turn himself into a dragon, and he is miserable. One night Aslan comes to him and takes him to a special pool, and asks him if he wants to be a boy again, and he says yes. So Eustace climbs into the pool and tries to scrape off his dragony hide, but it won't come off. Aslan says, "Here, I need to do that for you." And so Aslan claws away all the scaly dragonish crud from his body. And it hurts! It's not an entirely pleasant process. But in the end he is free, a young boy again, and he is overwhelmed with a sense of relief and peace. Eustace is a changed boy after this, as you find out if you read the other Narnia books.
Of course Lewis was illustrating for us that this process of cleansing is not something we can accomplish on our own; we need Him to help us. But it's the same with all the baggage, the scaly, dragonish crud, the stinky mildewy insulation covering our own hearts that keeps us from living fully and freely. It's nice to have a helping hand with all that stuff, if we'll just reach out and take it!
Yep. Bring it on. I'm so there!
:)
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