In my childhood home there was a narrow and compact linen closet just outside of my bedroom that was tightly packed with bedding, sleeping bags, blankets, and sheets. I loathed that closet. Forty plus years later, my blood pressure still rises thinking about it. To be fair, it wasn’t storage as much as it was a rigged explosive device. The pin was the doorknob, turn it just slightly and there would be an explosion.
Whenever I pulled the pin, I found myself buried in a pile of linen shrapnel. Frustrated and angry, I glowered as I gathered what I needed and diligently folded the leftover blankets and sheets, trying to create order and place things neatly back on the shelves, but I never could. There was too much crammed into a small space, and my efforts were an exercise in futility. Almost always I would give up, shoving everything back in, shutting the door against the pressure and resetting the pin, knowing that the next time would be the same.
Messes and chaos, disorganization, random things grouped together, it creates in me a tornadic feeling of anxiety, affecting me on a visceral level. From a very young age I was always attempting to tame the messes around me. I have vivid memories of staying up late into the night organizing my closet, and no, I wasn’t in my twenties, I was maybe ten.
I would also use my organizational skills on places like our family garage. I recall being in middle school, and removing everything from the garage, carefully sweeping it out, and then neatly rearranging and placing things back, grouping items in categorizes that made sense and then giving my parents a tour of the space. They were always appreciative, but I’m not sure they realized then that my need for order was rooted deeply in my soul. No matter the project, an ordered space always provided such a rich sense of satisfaction and calm, but unfortunately this feeling was ephemeral.
One of my earliest life lessons was that things inevitably end up back in a mess. Keeping things in order takes constant attention, and even this doesn’t always prevent the inevitability of chaos especially when others are involved. This was such a defeating realization as a child. My nature craved simplicity, and I felt like we didn’t have that in my house. I was overwhelmed by what my parents owned and saved, not that it was on an unhealthy level, but it was too much for me. I despised having to navigate or store too many things. I’ve always believed that things can be incapacitating, draining, and frankly distract from what’s truly important. The more things, the heavier the mental load.
As I grew, my desire for simplicity, order, and perfection only heightened and turned dangerous when I made some awful choices in my late teens and early twenties, choices that caused poisonous things to grow within me. Guilt, shame, grief, inadequacy, worthlessness, ugliness, self-hatred – and from those stemmed hundreds other poisonous things and lies about myself that I believed. My internal system was filled with toxicity. I managed to escape soft linen shrapnel every time the closet opened . . . but this? How would I survive if all that came pouring out?
There was just SO much inside me, and I couldn’t seem to get rid of it, no matter what I tried. I turned to control. While my heart and mind kept getting darker and scarier, I worked tirelessly to dominate and organize everything else. I controlled the outside of my body with punishing daily workouts and a strict health regimen relying on endorphins to give me a daily high so that I could mask my pain. I also took great care with my environments. My house? Always clean and beautifully designed. My closets and drawers, every hidden space– categorized and organized, often with clear acrylic bins and neat labels. I also set high personal and professional goals and refused to quit until I succeeded.
It was a pretty picture on the outside, but inside? I don’t know if anyone, even those closest to me, comprehended the lethal mess in my soul. In fact, now on the other side, I don’t even think I knew the depth of the darkness. It was very easy to hide when I was younger, but the older I got, the harder it became as we tend to encounter more trauma as we age and hence end up with more baggage. At some point a closed system fails, it explodes or implodes, and that’s what finally happened this year on September 1st, 30 years after it started.
After decades of dysfunction and holding tightly to control, my heart and soul blew open. It wasn’t pretty – it was catastrophic and undoubtedly one of the worst moments of my life. I remember sitting on the floor, my soul and heart pieces around me and I didn’t know where to go with it all. I didn’t have the strength to shove it back in, and I couldn’t. I was simply buried beneath it.
And that’s when I reached up and grabbed God’s hand. I told him I couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to be in charge. I didn’t want to shove anything back inside, and I simply couldn’t. I surrendered. Absolutely. Completely. I wanted Him to have my heart, my life, my past, present, and my future because I had made a hell of a mess.
And what did God do by the end of that very day? He handed me a brand-new life. What I didn’t realize in that moment is that my insides would be completely rearranged, that he would be doing a massive cleanup in my life. In the past four months he has purged so many bad thoughts from my heart and my mind and continues renewing me daily. I’m an entirely new creation, absolutely clutter free, reflecting his light and love. I thought I was good at organizing, but I’ve got nothing on God. He knows what He’s doing, kind of makes sense because He designed and created us and the universe. He’s THE master organizer.
The new year always ignites a desire within us for lasting change and transformation. Our environments are easy to organize, and for some of us our bodies are easy to change if we put in the work, but when it comes to our insides, to our hearts and our minds, the only way to achieve remarkable and lasting results is God. And there’s a great manual that is necessary for this, it’s called The Bible. If you want lasting, powerful change that will literally heal the neural pathways in your brain and make it possible to live a beautiful, clutter free life full of light and love, read it or listen to it – there are so many free Bible apps now that literally read it to you – and see what happens.
Four months into this journey with him, I can tell you that there is POWER in the Bible. It is living, in fact one of my favorite verses that speaks to this is Hebrews 4 : 12. It reads, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” His words are real, and they will change you.
If you are skeptical of the Bible and the origins and have questions or want resources, there are many books that have been written, in fact many of them were authored by former atheists who set out to prove Christianity false, and then through their detailed research came to faith because they discovered that all of it is true. I appreciate that these books exist, and I can point them to you if you’re curious, but because of what I have experienced on a heart and soul level, because of how I FEEL, and because of how God has already shown up so many times in my life, I can tell you that unequivocally, without a doubt, that not only is God undeniably real but so is his word and so are his organizational skills!
There’s not really a catch in any of this, but just like anything, to achieve true and lasting transformation, to rid yourself of all the internal poison, you must put in the work. What does that mean? It simply means spending time with God. He loves you, delights in you, and craves nothing but your heart and time with Him. He will continually purge the bad and replace it with good, every single day. My insides are so beautiful now, expansive and light, filled with love and the fruits of God’s spirit, and I had nothing to do with it. God is doing all the organizing, purging, and loving, and I simply sit back, spend time with him, and reap the benefits. Reading his word and praying seems a minimal investment for a transformed life. I’m here for it.
Are you?
For those who don’t know God, or if you’re skeptical of Christ or faith in general, I would highly recommend Lee Strobel’s, The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith. A former atheist, Lee set out to disprove Christianity and, in the end, discovered that it was true and is now in ministry. Another great reference book is Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell. Another fantastic book is Why I Believe by Dr. Henry Cloud