I am generally a clean person. I LOVE having a clean house and up until my children starting moving around, I had it mastered. Now I just have to fight for mediocrity in this area of my life.

So, this week I’ve been digging in and cleaning out some stuff that has been sorely neglected over a fun summer of playing outside more than inside. A few weeks back I walked by my pantry door and caught a whiff of what seemed rotten. I searched the shelves, but found nothing. I shrugged my shoulders, thought to myself, “It’ll show itself soon. Not a big deal.” And I went on with my life, trying to pretend that there wasn’t something lurking in my pantry.

But Tuesday, my sins found me out. In the bottom right corner, tucked into the darkness was a large paper bag of potatoes. At least it was potatoes. When I pulled the bag and the bottom didn’t come with it, I didn’t see any potatoes. What I saw was brown, gooey, maggot-filled globs of nothingness that were swarming with baby flies.

Refer back to paragrah one when I just claimed to be a clean person…

I literally started crying. I cried even harder when the stench hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew at that moment I was going to have to clean this up. At that moment, I thought moving out might be my best option.

Here’s why I’m telling you about my embarrassing potatoe issues…my house is a lot like our lives. Most of it looks pretty good, but somewhere deep in the corner there’s something growing. Is it bitterness? Lust? Addiction? You may want to just ignore it. Several weeks ago, that worked for me. But the reality is that eventually it was going to “come into the light.” Thankfully I found it when I did. It could have actually gotten worse…somehow. It could have ruined my wood floor or unleashed flies all over my kitchen. I don’t even want to think about it.

It’s time to spring clean your own life. What’s disgusting? It will seem daunting at first to get it cleaned out, but I’ll tell you from experience – I am SO thankful for my clean pantry. It smells good again and I have confidence that there are no more parasites living in there. That is a GOOD feeling. So, get the parasites out of your heart!

And if you ever wondered if pastor’s were perfect…well, I just shattered that myth! We all let things get a little “overdue” if we’re not careful.