Trash

Over the last 14 months, Trash has been on my list of blessings.  Strange right?

My amazing, brilliant and talented real estate broker of a brother in law has a management company that manages a shopping center 25 miles north of us.   He hired us to pick up trash 3 times a week, and we have done it for the last 14 months.  It has been a HUGE blessing to our finances.  And strangely enough, to my heart and growth too.

Since Tim's schedule this semester barely leaves any room for him to even sleep at night, Gracie and I are doing it by ourselves.  It takes a little longer, but allows for some rockin' girl dates at the chick fil a play ground with tea after we are done.

Yesterday while I was wearing my over sized latex gloves, sweat pouring from my brow, pushing Gracie in the stroller while she watched Doc McStuffins on my phone, I couldn't help but think...about trash...about the people that put it there, and about my own trash in my life.

If you spent one day with me at the center, you would quickly realize that a lot of people are being held captive by the addiction of nicotine and alcohol.   It's really sad.  I don't know them specifically, but I do know that they probably don't feel like they can live without it.  Make it through a day.  Function properly.

When I noticed an old, unwrapped McDonald's sandwich on the ground, untouched by bugs and looking like it was "fresh" off the grill, I wanted to gag.  Seriously, if bugs don't want to eat it, WHY do humans?  But... as soon as that thought came, so did another.  Maybe all they had was $1.49 to spend on a meal.  Maybe they feed their babies fruit and whole grain food to ensure their health and are choosing to suffer for the sake of the ones they love most.   Ouch, Lord.

Trash has changed me.  Not because I don't have any, but because I do.   Maybe it isn't thrown on the ground but thrown around in my heart or at the people I love most.   Maybe it isn't a cigarette butt--maybe lack of faith.  Maybe not a beer can, but an obsession about being in control.

Doesn't Jesus do to me, what I do for the center?  Walk around picking it up and saying, "I will take care of this for you?"  

So often we believe the nasty lie that because our trash isn't showing, we don't have any.

Oh the lies that Satan convinces us of:
No one knows.  It doesn't matter.
This isn't hurting anyone else.
I am right, and they are wrong.
Other people agree with me, so this isn't about me.
At least my trash doesn't smell as bad as________.

Friends when we do that, the trash picker-upper walks away--because in a sense, we are saying we can take care of our own trash.  Until it looks like this.  Over flowing.  Not able to be contained.

Everyone's trash looks and smells different.  But don't be deceived.  It ALL smells and looks bad to them.  We don't need someone reminding us of it.  We need someone to love us in spite of it.

This week I have heard many things that have absolutely BROKEN my heart.  Families being tested, mom's begging for answers on behalf of her sick baby, an anniversary of a loved one that was tragically lost, divorce, shame, regret, deep agony because of someone else's trash.

I drove home from the center pondering a simple but profound truth.

I get paid to pick up other's trash, but He paid to pick up mine.  

Not with a simple check that comes to the mailbox every month, but with His life.  Not because of...but in spite of! 

Focus on your own trash.  Not someone else's.  No matter how you think you can justify it to yourself.  Your trash stinks just as bad as theirs.  If I want to be loved through my trash, I have to love through theirs.

Pray for those that you know are deeply troubled.  Beg for God's grace, and direction when you know people feel like they are drowning in trash, maybe not of their own.

Carry their burden to the Father, lay it at His feet, and ask Him to clean it up.  He will.