The Closet of Sin

For those of you who know me, you know how much I appreciate order. Organization and neatness speak to my soul. In college, my roommate would come back to the dorm and everything would be cleaned and tidied up and the first question she would ask was, "Are you okay? Did you have a rough day?"

It's my way of destressing. I clean to be calm.

This ALSO being said, my apartment (to the naked eye) is always very clean. I make my bed every day. EVERY DAY. I literally can't get into bed if it hasn't been made. If I haven't had time to make it before I have to get back into it (a rarity), I always make it before turning around 5 minutes later and (neurotically) pulling it back again.

My dishes are always put in the dishwasher before I go to bed. I make sure there aren't piles of mail, magazines, papers with Bible verses for Small Group on Wednesday night, etc lying about. I wipe down my counters in my kitchen every night. I keep my bathroom counter neat and free of brushes and straighteners and stray ponies (pony tail holders).

But lurking beneath my obsessively straightened apartment lies an evil space that I dubbed the "Closet of Sin" a few months back.

Now, there isn't anything BAD in the Closet of Sin. It's the only storage I have in my apartment, so there are things like Christmas decorations in there. My chest of drawers was also in there (because of the weird layout of my room) and my television (because of the weird layout of my cable cords). However, there was A LOT of stuff that doesn't need to be in there.

During the summer, I would get back from a trip. Let's use Trek as an example. When I walked in the door after getting back from Trek, the FIRST THING I DO is throw all of my laundry into the wash. Because Trek laundry is gross. And even if there is something that didn't get worn, the rest of the Trek laundry has infected it. Everything smells like smoke and sweat and not showering for a week.

Wow... that was a digression. Back on track:

So everything that isn't laundry lays splayed out on my bed. I decide that I really don't want to deal with it. It's an entire bag of my gross boots (can I even wash those?), unused ziplock bags, beef jerky, my Trek journal and other such stray and sometimes gross things. So what do I do? I pitch it into the Closet of Sin.

Pretty much every trip I went on this summer had a bag (or half a bag) of stuff that I threw into the Closet of Sin.

And then throughout the rest of the year I continued to throw things that I just didn't want to deal with in there.

I came back from Christmas break and opened up the Closet of Sin and realized something: I had to deal with this junk. There wasn't any room left in the closet. It was time.

So I gutted it during my lunch break on Monday morning. I knew if I drug out all the stuff in there and laid it out over my nice and neatly made bed and all over my spotless floor, I would HAVE to organize.

So Monday after work, I went out and bought some things to help me aid my organization.

And then I went through everything. I pitched a LOT of stuff (why did I still have a thousand pieces of paper from Mpulse?!), donated a TON of stuff (I don't use those blankets, why was I holding onto them?), and reorganized. It was rough. And painful (I was so embarrassed by my slothenly living). And things broke (stupid desk!). But it felt SO GOOD when I was finally done. At 2:30am on Tuesday morning.

How many times do we do that with our Walk?

Pretend like everything is nice and orderly. We come to church with a closet of sin and pretend like everything is squeaky clean while Satan is lying to us. Telling us that we have to be perfect before the King. That Christ's sacrifice isn't enough. We're hiding behind the neatly made bed and dishes in the dishwasher, but in the closet are all the things that we don't want to deal with. The pain and the hurt and the sin in our lives.

Let me just tell you, it feels good to bring those things out in the open.

To deal with the "undealable."

And I've done that with my metaphor, but can I do it with my life?