SpringCleaning! Hand-Me-Down – March 30

SpringCleaning!
March 30, 2021

Hand-Me-Down

Psalm 51:7-15, ‘Soak me in Your laundry and I’ll come out clean, scrub me and I will have a snow-white life. Tune me into foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don’t look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don’t throw me out with the trash or fail to breathe Your holiness in me. Bring me back from the gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails! Give me a job teaching rebels Your ways so the lost can find their way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I’ll sing anthems to Your life-giving ways. Unbutton my lips, dear God; I’ll let loose with Your praise (MSG).’

‘Honey, I’m home!’ you hear as the door closes, and chatter suddenly fills the quiet home you have just finished SpringCleaning. It was so nice of your husband to take the children for an outing and for an ice cream cone to allow you to finish what you started. Suddenly footsteps bound closer and your little one skids to a stop at your feet. ‘Mummy, it smells soooo good!’ he giggles with emphasis. ‘Can I hep too?’ You tousle his hair and hand him a tiny bag that needs to be thrown into the trash bin. ‘Sure, bud,’ you smile, feeling a lightness you haven’t felt maybe ever actually, and you grab one final trash sack, as you hold the door open for him. You wander with him toward your dumpster and he carries your sack as if it is the most important chore in the world. You lug yours behind you; it is certainly heavier than his small bag. ‘What dat, Mum?’ he asks curiously, and you pause for a moment. ‘Oh, just some stuff that needs thrown out, baby.’ You think about the fine pieces of ash that fill his little sack; all that remains from the journals you once used to keep like a suicide note, all the records of the wrongs done to you, all the hopes and dreams that had gotten buried in the pages of ‘Not Enough’. The blaze from that fire had felt so freeing. ‘I no baby,’ you hear him mutter, and you smile from deep inside. A smile that feels unfamiliar; it’s been so long, and his face lights up as he watches the corners of your mouth turn in a different direction today. Today. The word sounds marvelous, like the tinkle from the music of that carousel at the park you used to take the children to ride, like the feel of dancing in the rain, like a snowflake lighting on the tip of your tongue during the first snow of the season, like a piece of candy slowly melting in your mouth. ‘What dat in yo sack, Mummy? Jus’ stuff too?’ Curiosity killed the cat, a sad look crosses your face quickly like a piece of newspaper blowing across a busy street, trying not to get stuck on the underbelly of someone’s car. You don’t know how you could ever list all the things in the trashbag that drags behind you; you’re thankful now maybe you won’t ever have to. The empty pill bottles you flushed and the alcohol containers you dumped, the razor hidden carefully in the hem of a jacket and the shard of glass buried in a lump of clay. The hate letters from your ex, and the divorce proceedings and custody battle when the marriage failed. The skimpy clothes you wore hoping someone would notice you and all the hand-me-downs that for life defined you. You envision the chains that fell off earlier today and how great it felt when you dropped them inside. You’re so thankful now you tossed the key in also. The bag makes a sound as glass upon glass clanks; you considered that maybe the memories and the tears and the entirety of your past might fill any tiny crevices not sucked up by the litter of your life. ‘Yah, baby, jus’ stuff too, and it’s time to toss it out.’ You lift the lid and your little man drops his bag inside and then you hoist yours over the ledge and listen to it thud at the bottom of the barrel. As the lid falls closed, relief and the sound of freedom fill your mind. For now, you can go back inside, and in every corner, it is clean, white-washed. A clear slate, nothing, not even an eraser streak left behind. The decay of dying dreams, gone; the weighted memories, gone; the traces of a former self, gone; the ‘you’ you tried to be, gone; the habits and addictions, gone. On the shelves now are His Words to you about His great love for you. His Promises to you decorate the walls and pour from vases like fresh flowers. His Love for you plays through the speakers in your inner self like love songs from a favorite album. The Light of His Presence fills all the corners of your ‘Home’ as you welcome Hope inside too. For the first time in a long time, you dance through the doorway, and now you too yell, ‘Honey, I’m Home!’

Beautiful You, you are clean; you are forgiven; you are free; no longer a Hand-Me-Down, hidden in an outgrown space.

Thank you for SpringCleaning with me during the month of March,
and for letting me SpringClean as well with you.

‘God, our God, will take care of the hidden things
but the revealed things are our business.
It’s up to us and our children to attend
to all the terms in this Revelation
(Deuteronomy 29:29, MSG).’