A willing heart = A changed heart.

I am a hoarder, a saver, a collector, a stasher, a poker, a stuffer, a pig.

Not in every area of my life. Not even in most areas of my life. But in those few dark closets, those few hidden shelves, those few forgotten about hide-aways...I tend to let the 'crap', for lack of a better word, pile up.

My bedroom seems to be the main focus of this disorder. It quickly becomes the catch all for empty shopping bags that I leave the receipt of my purchases in just in case I have a change of heart, the one missing sock that I am hopeful will turn up...and more than likely it's mate has already been thrown, the pants that need a button sown on or need ironing but HA! we all know that will never happen. And so the piles build.

They build and build and for so long I do not even notice. I come into my room at the end of the day, flop myself down onto the bed in utter exhaustion and I don't even SEE the chaos around me. Or maybe, I do not want to see it. Maybe if all other corners of the house appear organized than this one 'little' indulgence will not be so bad. Maybe if I contain the clutter, excess, GARBAGE to one room...my room, no one will know that this part of me exists.

But I know. And it bothers me. And He knows. And it bothers Him. He knows that my spiritual closets are full of junk as well. And even though I can go on for days, weeks, and sometimes months over-looking it and ignoring it, one day He opens my eyes.

It happens this way every time. In one moment I am content to poke around the bottom of my closet for a missing shoe...pushing aside shopping bags, fallen sweaters, and discarded pants, and in the next moment I am not. I drag on daily with a tank that is full of worldly garbage...and spiritually on empty.

I am horrified at what lies before me, within me. The dust collected on my reading lamp. The three weeks worth of newspapers under my nightstand, the cut off tags from clothing strewn across my dresser, the pairs of shoes haphazardly flung around the room, the glasses of half-full water lining the window sill, the pants that were tried on and dropped where I stood... on and on my eyes are opened to the pig-sty both around me and within me. And I feel the shame of what I am seeing and of what it implies about the resident of this room.

But like always, God restores what is damaged. He mends what is broken. And He loves despite it all. As I pick up the pieces again and again, I am reminded that I am a work in progress. And even if the rest of the world does not see my brokenness, He does. And He cares. And He heals. But only when I am ready and when my hands are active in the process as well. He longs to take out the garbage, if I will just hand it over. A willing heart...a changed heart.