Black mold. Ready, go.

Deep cleaning.

Exhilarating. Exhausting. 

If you’re anything like me (and you may not be!), you spend most days just trying to maintain. My cleaning philosophy is I clean it if it bothers me, and all the stuff I don’t notice (which is plenty) is just fine for now. I don’t care much about under the sink and inside the oven and those dust bunny colonies residing under our beds.

If we all have clean underwear it’s a big win in my book. Much beyond that is just really unrealistic. As the rhyme goes, “There will be days for cleaning and cooking (haha, as I typed that word is came out cookies–hopefully there will be days for cookies too!) … for children grow up while we are not looking.” I figure I’d rather watch my children than watch for cobwebs.

But then there’s that time of year when the weather changes and I need to dig around for hats and gloves.

That’s all I meant to do–pull out off-season clothes. Nothing more. I wasn’t trying to pick a fight with filth, really.

But there it was. All along the whole back wall of the closet.

Black mold.

Oh for the love. 

My heart did a little dip as I mentally canceled the day’s delightful duties and embraced the fact that my morning would now be spent face-masked, on hands and knees attacking toxic spores with bleach. I shooed the kids out of the house, opened windows, and went for it.

I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed–just me and the mold.

Really, the weekend prior had been another sort of black-mold experience. Usually my retreat weekends are jam-packed full. Full of people. Full of interaction. Full of fullness. But this retreat afforded me some sweet downtime–enough to really sink into it, enough to let all the distractions fade away.

Enough to venture into the back of my heart-closet and ask God if there was anything I needed to clean out.

He showed me some black mold. 

I’ll tell you what–the thing about God is, He’s terribly honest. He sort of just says it like it is. He doesn’t say, “Well, Kari–there are a few little cobwebs in the back, no big deal really. You can leave them there if you want.”

He points and says, “Black mold. Ready, go.” 

And what we really need, for our hearts just as with our houses, is a periodic deep-cleaning. It takes a little time, and quiet. It takes sitting still for awhile, and asking God to walk through the rooms of our lives and see if there’s anything He’d like to draw our attention to.

And you know what? We don’t have to be afraid of this. He’s straightforward, honest, direct. But He’s also kind, gentle, loving. I’m so grateful He let me find the black mold before it got any worse. I was able to get rid of it all, air the room all day, and now I feel this sense of peace whenever I open the door:

I know it’s been dealt with.

It’s the same with our hearts. We might think ignorance is bliss, but I’ll take the true joy of confession and cleansing over the illusionary “bliss” of turning a blind eye to black mold. King David agreed–he dealt with some serious stuff in his life. He prayed:

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. (Ps. 51:7)

God answered. Black mold gone. And then David wrote:

Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart! (Ps. 32:10-11)

{Praying courage for you as you let the Lord explore the closets of your heart. Have a blessed week!}

*Originally shared in Spring 2014.