Junk Drawers.

I just finished reading "Every Woman's Battle". I bought the book about 5 years ago, while trying to get a grip on "Every Man's Battle" (yes I read the one for men first, that is just the kind of person I am. I like to know what I am up against! lol!) 5 years ago I started to read it & thought this is a waste of time I totally do not think this book is accurate. Boy was I wrong!!!

 In my recent 'cleanse' to cut out the junk in my life I am trying to replace it with productive things. I am also desperately on a  journey to deal with my own 'junk', you know how there is the drawer or multiple drawers in your house that you call the "junk drawer"- you never clean it out, or organize it, anything you don't know what to do with, just throw it in the drawer! I have realized that as humans we have our own  internal junk drawers. Things happen to us, situations occur, attitudes form, bitterness, unforgiveness... (need I go on...) We don't know what to do with it at the time so what else is there to do but throw it in the junk drawer of our heart.

My internal drawer was starting to overflow a bit, you know like when you gotta smash things down to get it to close. That was me, or so I thought! So I picked up this book again, my goodness how we change in 5 yrs, maybe when I 1st picked up the book I was just too young or immature to understand it, but 5 yrs later I felt like this woman was in my head. The book looks like my highlighter exploded on it. I started to see the honest version of myself & it was NOT pretty at all! My drawer did not just need a little smashing it needed a complete overhaul!

I am now experiencing things for the first time in my life. I come from a family of avoiders, non-confronters so there has been a lot of junk in my life that I have never dealt with. In a part of this book there is a suggestion to write a letter to your 13 yr old self- HOLY COW! If you have never done it, you must! It was one of the most difficult things I have ever done but also the most freeing. Things I have been carrying around with me for nearly 17 years I was finally able to let go of.

I know with my 4 yr old sometimes I feel like I repeat the same thing over & over again but sometimes she just doesn't get it- how God must feel the same way with us. "LeAnn let it go, LET IT GO! I have better for you, if you will just trust me." Yet for some reason there are times that we just won't let go until God finally has to teach us the hard way. I like to have control all the time, I am a perfectionist, to my detriment at times. I have always thought this was just part of my make up, who I am. Are you ever sick of being 'who you are'? God reminded me that I do not have to stay that way but it is gonna hurt for a bit. To really look at your core is not pleasurable, no matter who you are! So I am on a journey and honestly it may take me a long while before I arrive, but I am so thrilled & awestruck by a God who loves me and allows me so many chances to get this right.

So here a few nuggets from my 1st clean sweep:

• Stop comparing & criticizing and begin embracing (me & my husband)
• When we sow emotional and metal seed of compromise, we reap a harvest of relational destruction
• Guard your heart. Prov 4
• The only way to kill a bad habit is to starve it to death
• God made every fiber & nerve of our bodies, He can also satisfy every fiber & nerve as well.
• Love is a commitment not a feeling
• Either sin will keep you from the bible, or the bible will keep you from sin
• The tongue corrupts the whole person. James 3
• If God does not despise you for the ways you have tried to fill the void in your heart, neither should you despise yourself
• You are never more like Satan than when you are full of pride.
• Intimacy= In-to-me-see

So here is to cleaning out my 1st junk drawer! Great things are to come...

To (her) who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. Rev 3:21