#emotionalhealing #waterwalkinggirls #joycomesinthemorning by: Deborah Ard
“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever.” Psalm 30:10-12 I am not sure when it began. Was it when Clark and I were first married? Or was it after the birth of our first child? Or our second child? Or was it after our children were older and began participating in outside activities like t-ball? I am just not sure when my decline as a housekeeper began but at some point I let my household duties get piled up.

Sure I kept the house overall clean by us cleaning the bathrooms, floors and such. But the everyday necessities fell by the wayside. I allowed our family to fail to pick up after ourselves on a daily basis and eventually over time we were surrounded by clutter. I believe it got to be so overwhelming that instead of attacking the problem I would just sit down, watch tv, and do nothing. For years I would pray that God would help me overcome this shortcoming of mine. I read books and articles on de-cluttering and housekeeping but I never did take the first step to begin the process. When I became a Rachel Hollis follower last year I completed an exercise of envisioning what I wanted my life to look like 10 years from now and then made a list of 10 dreams I wanted to accomplish in those 10 years. Rachel Hollis advises you write out your list of dreams as if it has already occurred every day and really focus on one of those dreams until you accomplish it. I first wrote my list on December 2, 2018 and my #10 dream on my list says, “We have a clutter-free organized home.” And so my climb out of my pit began. In the months that followed the desire for our family to embark on preparing our home to sell grew and I knew the first step had to be de-cluttering. Serious decluttering takes time so I planned for my summer break from school to be set aside for this overwhelming project. I spent June and July going through one room at a time. In each room I would get rid of items we didn’t want or need and I packed up items we wanted to keep. We rented a storage building to store items that we wanted to keep and didn’t need in the meantime. As I worked in our home I did a lot of walking down memory lane and I did a lot of praying. It was a very cathartic process. On July 24th as I was starting my morning routine of writing down my 10 dreams I was in tears as I realized that I had finally accomplished #10! I wrote PRAISE GOD beside it!
Now that we have reclaimed our house and now have it on the market we are having to go above and beyond to keep it “show” ready. At first I felt frustrated with having to put everything off of my counters every morning and make sure we all had made our beds. But this week I had two “aha” moments. The first “aha” is that this practice is teaching each of us in our family the daily practices we need to instill so that we will have good housekeeping habits. Go God! All of us have had our eyes opened to how good it feels to have clutter-free spaces. The second “aha” occurred as I was writing this week and that is that God has revealed to me that I needed emotional healing. The clutter of my home and my lack of being a good housekeeping leader had caused me to be in a type of depression in my home. I had a full gamut of emotions including sad, overwhelmed, disappointed, disgusted, and embarrassed. Praise God for His mercy! Praise God for His grace! And praise God for His healing!
Today I challenge you to examine yourself. What kind of healing do you need; emotional, spiritual, or physical? As I said earlier in the week, often these can be intertwined. In other words emotional healing may also bring spiritual healing or physical healing may also bring emotional healing. Perhaps you are like me and are in situation that has gone on for so long that you just don’t know how to begin to dig out of the pit. I imagine your issue is not housekeeping but it may be finances, healthy living, time management, self-control, the list goes on and on. Perhaps you are feeling overwhelmed and don’t know how to start the process. Creighton Abrams, Jr once said, “When eating an elephant take one bite at a time.” Today my prayer for you is that you are able to hear God’s conviction of the type of healing He is wanting for you. May you feel His guidance as you start the process of taking one step at a time. Rest in the promise that you are not alone. God’s Holy Spirit is with you as you take one bite at a time out of the elephant.
I began this blog with the last verses of Psalm 30 and I will close with the first verses of Psalm 30.
“I will exalt you, Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. Lord, my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead; you spread me from going down to the pit. Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:1-5

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