Hi friend,
I’m sure many of you like me have a drawer or even a closet just stuffed fulled of miscellaneous things that don’t really have a place in your home. You’ll find the most random things in these spaces. They’re typically like giving a cat a bath to try and rummage through when you do actually try to find something in them.
I was laying in bed one night, praying, and this analogy popped into my head: What if we’re like junk drawers? We keep so much unnecessary things and hold on to them. Eventually all of that “junk” tends to pour out onto our lives and relationships. It begins to seep out onto everything in our lived and has a negative impact on what goes on around us. I think it can be easily overlooked to see the things we hold onto as toxic.
It’s easy to believe we need to hold onto traumatic events and can heal without talking about them. It’s easy to believe we need to keep replaying conversations in our minds or practicing what we would say if something were to happen or be said. It’s easy to fret over situations in the past and not see how toxic it is to our present. It’s easy to hold onto unnecessary things that are the real reason of what is weighing us down.
I use the analogy of a junk drawer or closet because both things can be easily cleaned out. The problem is are we taking the time to gradually clean them out or declutter so that we can fit those spaces with things that we need? Things that breathe life? Things that aren’t just wasting space? Now don’t get me wrong, it’s important to go through those areas in your life that are unnecessarily holding space.
I had a traumatic event happen to me in my early teens and until I was in counseling for something else, I never brought it up. I didn’t heal that area or confront it so in return, it carried on to my marriage. Which can happen to you as well. If we don’t find real healing in those things filling up space in our minds, even if we store them way in the back, eventually they will show back up when we least expect it. Those areas will seep into your relationships, marriages, and kid’s lives. Holding onto toxic things can become generational and hard to break. Luckily, I was able to talk to someone about it and that’s when even more that my mind had “forgotten” (suppressed memory to protect my brain from the trauma) came up and then I was able to completely work through it and begin truly healing from it. Each time I would talk about it, I would hear a voice of regret telling me I shouldn’t have told anyone. I will tell you this, that is the enemy trying to trick you into staying in that place and holding onto to things so he can continue to have control. Because these are things that prevent us from growing, from being fruitful. Which is all the devil really cares about, if we’re fruitful or not.
I found true healing giving all of that to Jesus and trusting that he would restore me completely. And I know that that is what he wants from you too. He wants you to give up all of that “junk” in your drawer or pouring out of that closet and just lay it down before him. Although he knows all of what has happened and is happening now, it’s up to us to bring it before him. He wants our hearts and wants to know what is going on in the inside.
It’s vital to quit shoving things into random places, trying to hide them thinking it doesn’t or won’t matter. It does. Not only just for yourself, but to everyone around you. It is important to confront them before they take up unnecessary space and try to mold you into someone who God did not create you to be or alter your lifestyle completely.
- Brittany