I’ve had spring fever lately. Clean out everything I haven’t been able to clean out in over a year. It’s cathartic. I love my newly organized kitchen. I love my new laundry sorting plan. I love my new system for storing the kids clothes. I love all that stuff I’ve gotten rid of.
Part of this Great Clean Out started because everytime we went to get a pan out of the cabinet 15 other pans fell out, I got sick of the mountain of laundry being “part of the decor” as my friend once said. Speaking of that friend, she’s the other reason I started cleaning house. Brenda has been watching her family be revised for several years now. And I’ve been along for that ride for just a little while. She’s not only making radical changes in her own family, but encouraging us, gently and humorously, to do the same. It’s a gift she has, I tell ya. Most blogs that “encourage” you to do more, be more just leave me feeling… less. But not Brenda. She makes me giggle. And wish I could run over to her house when mine’s gotten too crazy.
She’s been doing a casually feminine series. Y’all, I’m not so feminine. You knew that didn’t you. Was it the pigtails? The goofy t-shirts? The jeans, it was the jeans. Whatever it was that tipped you off, you know I’m not frilly, fru-fru-y, or pink.
But that’s not what this is about. Feminine is not so much ruffles, but well, being the girl that God made us to be. And not to be confused with, well, a boy.
This week’s assignment is the face. Odd, you might think. Interesting, I say.
Years ago when I realized I needed more than the life I was living and decided to check out what life could be like learning about Jesus Christ I began to want to change things about me. I was 17 and one of the first things I wanted to change was my foul mouth. I cussed. It was cool. No really, I thought it was. But I didn’t want to do that anymore. So I stopped. And while I was trying to quit that habit, I considered replacing those words with more acceptable words. I’m an overthinker. What’s in a word? Just letters. It’s the meaning we assign to them. But then I began to see that it wasn’t the words. I mean, in that case, I could cuss in French and we’d all be good, right? So I decided instead of saying, “d….. it” when I got cut off in traffic I would say, “darn it”, but that wasn’t it either. I would just grunt and make a rotten face. But that wasn’t it either. I started driving with my vanity mirror open. Because I caught what I looked like one time when nothing was really going through my head and it was ugly. I looked put out at the world all the time. I needed to change my heart.
But it’s been awhile since I was that girl. And now I have a lot of irritations, frustrations, distractions. And I saw that face again the other day. The one I didn’t like.
I was just talking with another real life friend the other day and I mentioned to her that I have this line on my face. One between my eyes. Matt calls it a worry line. He’s been known to try to rub it off. I wish it were that easy. I think of it more as a rotten, cranky line. It’s back. And deeper than before.
I want my face to reflect my heart.
Or do I? Not so much.
No. I don’t really.
Because most of the time my heart feels rotten. Irritated, messed with, aggravated.
So, like that young girl, so long ago, I wanted to change me. The appearance. The outside. But when I began to peel back and fix that top layer, I realized there’s rottenness underneath. And I want that fixed too.
This post is linked up at A Family Revised.
