Heart Overhaul: Getting Rid of the Yucky Stuff

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Psalm 51:10 KJV 

This blog series is inspired by my fascination with HGTV and also my recent home purchase in North Carolina. My life right now is completely wrapped up in home renovations of every kind and making a million decisions like paint color, picking the right couch, what kind of washer and dryer do I get: front loader or top loader? 

So when it came time to decide what I was going to write about the month of October, I thought it couldn't have been an easier decision than to write about what I am currently dealing with in my home and in my heart.

 You see this move was BIG! We moved across the country from Texas to North Carolina. Why? My husband got relocated. My husband saw it as an opportunity, as the bread winner for the family, to provide a better life for us in a beautiful little town on the coast. We have the beach and the mountains within just a few hours reach. The views from our bedroom windows beat all and the fact that a deer could walk up to me on my front porch is quite picturesque. 

For me, this move, was a big spiritual move for growth in ministry. That is how I saw it and felt God confirm it in my heart. I have pages of journal entries and conversations with complete strangers I have had in NC and Texas that have only solidified that our move here was beyond financial. I know God is up to something BIG. Whether it be in my career as a speaker and writer, growth as a family, opportunities for my children, or all of the above. So we covered everything in prayer and I mean everything! God was in every step and we saw his hand in all of it as a family. 

As Joyce Meyer says, one of my favorite Bible teachers, "New level means new devil." As soon as we got here we got slammed with bad news after bad news. Crazy weather systems and historic floodings, a hurricane that was on it's way to the Carolinas and our closing got pushed back twice! Mind you, this all happened the week after we got here. 

So you can imagine the anxiety, fears and doubts that began to creep into my mind "Are we doing the right thing?" "What were we thinking?" "Is this really meant to be?" I put on my happy face but was in turmoil inside, alot like my house. It's beautiful on the outside and so it should as a home on the market will typically look. Of course it is going to show it's most beautiful side, but deep down there were issues. We knew it was going to be a fixer upper so we called in the specialists- mold remediation. 

So today was demo day and the carpets began to be pulled back, the tiles broken away from the floor that had been glued down for so long. Most of it looked ok underneath but some areas revealed the big, black and moldy stuff that my mold guy said needed to be scrubbed. 

I thought about how storms in our life can be a kind of demo day for us. This past week certainly was for me. I began to carry the problems we were facing on my shoulders instead of letting Jesus carry them for me. This created me to be ugly and snappy to my kids at times and at one point just losing it, putting my heads in my hands and throwing a pity party. Now you might think I deserved that pity party, but see, God wanted me to remember the whole time that I was not alone, he saw each need before I did and he was going to see it through. What I didn't realize till now was that he was uncovering some mold in my soul that needed a good cleaning. As the above scripture states "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me" Psalm 51:10 KJV 

I needed God to give me a clean heart and scrub out the dirty places that began to show. I was not operating out of the right spirit. I was operating out of fear and we know what God says in His word about that, "God did not give us a spirit of fear but one of love, power and a sound mind" 2 Timothy 1:7.

I was not operating out of love or power and my mind was far from sound. It was anxious and confused, fearful and doubting. Had I not stepped back to see what was going on and get into God's word and seek Him earnestly in prayer and know that I had an army of family and friends praying for me, I would have been blinded to His purpose for the mold remediation going on in my life. I created an environment in my mind for satan to grow his nasty mold spores and plant his seeds of destruction in my life. This weekend the scrubbing began.

It began when we visited a church near us and they started to play "I Surrender All". I knew in my heart that I wasn't giving him all of me, my heart, my marriage, my children. I kept trying to hold onto pieces of it. He wanted me to let go. I began to ask God to let me rest in his promises and help me grow my trust in Him and His leading, because I lost my way. Thank the Lord, he answers those honest and heartfelt prayers. 

So here I am baring it all, literally, mold and all. Most people put on social media only the happy things, well I want to put on this blog, the honest things. The struggles you deal with, I do too. I may blog and write and speak to women, but that doesn't make me perfect. In fact I am far from it. I might as well put a target on my back, because I know the calling on my life makes satan scared. I am glad, I  know I am exactly where God wants me to be. I want to let women everywhere know that whatever environment you are creating that is allowing hellish mold to grow in your soul, to stop. Let the ultimate mold re-mediator come in and scrub you clean and give you a clean heart too. Let him peel back those layers and expose those things he needs to deal with. Trust me, you'll be glad you did.

You don't give your heart in pieces

You don't hide yourself to tease us

Your love's not fractured

It's not a troubled mind

It isn't anxious

It's not the restless kind

Lyrics from Bethel's "Pieces"