Spring cleaning
I open the door to my war room–just enough so I can step in–and survey the damage. Extra lamps clutter the floor, making saucer-sized indentations in the carpet. The idea stings–that this would be the room where light sources go into storage. Boxes stuffed and consigned to donation sit against the wall, covering over the variegated, smacked-on history of my prayers. Right now, my prayer closet offers no room for my knees.
Of course, this isn’t the only place where I pray. God and I meet for walks, and the wide blue sky is the sapphire sea stretching out from His throne; the wind, the evidence of His Spirit. God cannot be contained in places built by human hands. Even so, clutter in my prayer closet feels like clutter in my heart. Christmas came, rearranging our home, consuming the outer limits of our margin. Life does that; it slowly fills all the open territory. So in seasons, forced to find room for the meaning-full, reclamation becomes my ruthless project. Spring cleaning begins with me.
I start with the lamps, lifting one in each hand. Limp cords slowly unwind from the bases, dragging along the carpet, thwacking against the vinyl floor on the other side. Unplugged lights become dull doodads that just get in the way. I click my tongue against the roof of my mouth, thinking that’s true of people as well as lamps. Remain in me, Jesus said, and bear much fruit (John 15:5).
I hear Riley’s steps, light against the carpet, and I smile. I don’t have to see my children, nor even hear their voices, to know which one approaches. Their feet fall uniquely, as I’m sure ours do before God.
She stops outside my war room door and waits for my attention. This is her way, never wishing to intrude.
“Hi, sweet girl,” I say.
“Oh, hello, Mom Jones,” Riley chirps happily, though we both know something more than this exchange of greetings has motivated her to find me. “Mom Jones?” She continues, after a pause.
“Yes?”
“When do you plan to get the Spring clothes out?”
We both know she really means her Spring clothes, but she’s polite enough to recognize the expansiveness of the project.
“Umm…today?” I had thought of this already at the sight of so many delicate blooms, though the temperatures have only slowly begun to climb. The rebirth of things requires an entirely different wardrobe. It’s a Biblical idea, not just a practical one. The truth is the truth in every context. In scripture, new clothes represent redemption, and our self-righteousness but “filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6)”. The Word speaks of the redeemed as those now clothed with power (Luke 24:49), with the imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:54), with Christ (Galatians 3:27). In the Message, Eugene Peterson called this “our adult faith wardrobe (Galatians 3:27 MSG).” So Spring has come, and my daughter wants to throw off the winter weight and live new. And she needs me to find her Spring clothes, just as I need God to redress me in mine.
“When today?” Riley asks, underlining the air with her hand, unsatisfied with my lack of specificity.
“Well, let me finish here, and I’ll do that next,” I say, allowing my attention to wander slowly back to my prayer closet and its open door, the nearly bare carpet ghost-scarred with rings.
Next will be the boxes, plump with the things we’ve grown beyond. The past sometimes has a way of obscuring my view of the present, of blocking my view of the future. Sometimes my prayers, cluttered with old battles, need to rediscover their hope, their vision for God-sized things.
The boxes make mysterious sounds–things sliding and falling to the bottom–as I lift them with intention. Riley backs up, careful to give me room.
“What’re you doing, Mom Jones?” She asks, daughter-eyes finally noticing where and how I’ve already been at work.
I pause in the doorway and smile, balancing that box in my arms, blowing an errant strand of hair out of my eyes.
“Well, Riley girl, I’m making some room to pray.”
