Saturday, December 18, 2021
Welcome
This space serves to tell a story. I invite you to start at the beginning by clicking the link above "Touring the House" and start with Opening the Door. You can then read more about the process of "Cleaning the House" to hear details about our journey, if you are interested.
Redeeming the Past
Taken from original post July 2015.
In early July I took a last minute, super fast, trip to Nebraska. I was scheduled to leave at 8am on Tuesday and be back by Wednesday evening...giving me just about 24 hours in Nebraska. Well, I missed my flight and ended up hanging out in the Orlando airport with this little bird for nearly the entire day on Tuesday until I could get a 7pm flight that night.
Not a great way to start the trip, but really I just had one goal. Last September, Geoff and I sold mom's house to a couple that was renovating it. Early on they sent a few pictures of some things they did the outside of the house, but more recently they contacted us and invited us back to see all the renovations. It was an invitation I didn't want to pass up! My missed flight forced us to cancel dinner plans with everyone while I was there, but I did get to go to breakfast with my Dad and nephew, and we met sister-in-law and the kids there as well!
From there, Geoff and I headed down to Bellevue. Now, just to give you a little background...in October 2013 we had the house cleaned out. My previous posts that feature the images Geoff took were from before that clean up effort. Below you will see images of what it looked like when we actually sold it.
Here is the street view before:
And although I didn't get the exact angle after their renovations, you can get a general idea. They took out the big bushes, raised the tree line, painted and put in all new windows and a front door.
The entry way before:
And from the after shot you can get a better view of the new front door as well as how they replaced the banisters.
The living room/dining room before (obviously, this is before we moved out the final furniture pieces):
And after:
Because of the mold, they had to replace all the dry wall and ceiling in the entire house except the ceilings in the bedrooms. The also had to take up the floor and subfloor because of the water damage.
The kitchen before:
And look at the after! In addition to replacing all the plumbing, cabinets and appliances, they also removed the wall and opened it up a good bit!
Although the after isn't too dramatic, you can see that they also replaced all the doors in the house and they had to re-do all the electricity.
The hall bathroom before:
And after...amazing, right? He told us that they had to removed the tub through the wall!
My bedroom before:
My room and Geoff's room were probably in the best shape before, but you can see that they took out the two closet doors in my room and made one sliding door.
Geoff's room before:
And after:
Mom's room and half bath before:
And after:
The basement before:
Their renovations made it feel so finished! The one room was always sort of finished but the floor made it cold and dreary down there so the carpet really made it much more comfortable.
They also walled off part of the closet under the stairs and added a crawl space door to what was the playroom for more systematic storage.
One of the very first things that struck me was how much light was in the house. I'm sure it was mostly in contrast to my memories of the house always being hidden behind curtains and closed blinds. But it was so refreshing to walk in and see the light!
The other thing that really stood out to me was how open and fresh it was. Granted, it was all new with new drywall and paint, but more than the freshness in the air it really was almost like a weight was lifted from my chest as I took it all in. I could breath! In the months that we spent cleaning the house, we had to wear masks with filters because of the mold. But the mold being gone wasn't really even the reason it felt better. All the stuff, all the chaos, all the disorder...it was suffocating. And now, now there is freedom!
"He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction..."
Job 36:16
"He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me."
Psalm 18:19
There were also small reminders that were familiar as we walked through each room. For instance, they left the rods in all the closets. And in what was almost like a completely new house, little things like that were reminders that it was the same house we called home for so long.
He and his wife knew just a little about our story when we sold the house to them last September. But when the story went viral back in the Spring, they came across it and saw Geoff's images for the first time of the house when it was full of stuff. Rick shared with us that he would often be working on the house and wonder what it was like for us to live there. It was so sweet of him and his wife, Sharon, to let us come back and offer us some closure. It really felt like they took ownership of the place and while they have listed it, Rick told us they will keep us posted on a buyer! He even wanted to take a picture of Geoff and I on the front porch before we left!
In the end, I am so very thankful I got to go see it! It is wonderful to be able to have memories of it so beautiful instead of just the broken, cluttered ones in my memory. It also offered great hope! Hope in it being a place of peace and refuge for a family one day. Hope in that the darkness and secrecy did not win...it was all brought to light and made anew! It was a very tangible picture of what the Gospel does to our hearts!
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
II Corinthians 5:17
Thursday, April 23, 2015
My Bedroom
I often lie next to my daughter in her bed and admittedly, especially during these days of pregnancy, I often fall asleep with her when I put her to bed. But in the moments before sleep comes, we talk and snuggle and look around her room. Simple pictures, cut from scrapbook paper of a flower, a frog and a butterfly are in white frames on the wall. We talk about the colors and their smiling faces and how they match her bedspread. And I love every minute of it. In those moments I often wonder what that pink and green room looks like through the eyes of a little girl. I often pray that her room would be a place of comfort, peace, joy, laughter, love and safety...all the things I imagine a little girl's room should be. But sometimes, I feel like I'm not really sure what a girl's room should be.
Unlike Geoff's bedroom, when we returned to our childhood house, my bedroom was almost exactly as I remember. The pink walls and the ruffle valance. The flimsy strawberry shortcake desk and table next to the bed, barely usable because of the stuff that covered it. The white chest peaking out from the heaps of junk between the closet doors. I never actually remember using that dresser. I don't even remember where we kept our clothes. Often times the dryer didn't work, so we hung a lot of things on hangers in the doorways to dry. I also remember that there was constantly a pile of clean laundry on top of the dryer. That is probably what led to so much ironing.
Unlike Geoff's bedroom, when we returned to our childhood house, my bedroom was almost exactly as I remember. The pink walls and the ruffle valance. The flimsy strawberry shortcake desk and table next to the bed, barely usable because of the stuff that covered it. The white chest peaking out from the heaps of junk between the closet doors. I never actually remember using that dresser. I don't even remember where we kept our clothes. Often times the dryer didn't work, so we hung a lot of things on hangers in the doorways to dry. I also remember that there was constantly a pile of clean laundry on top of the dryer. That is probably what led to so much ironing.
Photo © Geoff Johnson
And then there was my bed. It was really the only functioning part of the room. As a young child, I remember lining the bed next to the wall with all my stuffed animals. I got spider bites frequently, and the stuffed animals covering the crack between the bed and wall somehow made me feel safer about what might crawl up there at night. Eventually though, when mom stopped sleeping in Geoff's room, she started sleeping in mine. It wasn't by invitation—like how my daughter begs me to lie down with her at night—it was by necessity, and I hated it. Especially as I entered my early teenage years and the twin bed seemed to grow smaller and smaller. It was terribly uncomfortable, but I will confess that it provided more warmth in the winter.
Someone once asked me if I kept my room clean despite how my mom kept the rest of the house. At the time, the question was incredibly insulting, but I suppose a part of me can now understand why someone would wonder. The truth is we didn't really know any different. Yes, we went over to other people's homes, but as a child I couldn't really articulate what was different about my situation, especially as a child living in the midst of trauma and in fear of anyone finding out. We also were never made to pick up or clean. And while it is probable that most adults would eventually clean on their own accord, I think most children are different. I know that my kids don't naturally want to pick up their toys, so I'm sure we never thought much about it when we were little. Probably ruling over those two things, however, was the issue that our rooms weren't really our rooms. At one point or another, Mom shared our rooms with us, and the heaps of newspapers and bags and boxes and junk were hers.
One thing that is different in my room now, however, is the writing on the wall. They are dirty walls, mostly from fingerprints that accumulated from years of having to brace ourselves with one hand on the wall as we walked through the house so we didn't fall. But in our last days in the house, after Mom's passing, I penned this verse on the filthy pink paint:
One thing that is different in my room now, however, is the writing on the wall. They are dirty walls, mostly from fingerprints that accumulated from years of having to brace ourselves with one hand on the wall as we walked through the house so we didn't fall. But in our last days in the house, after Mom's passing, I penned this verse on the filthy pink paint:
It is a bad picture, I know. (Remember, I'm not the photographer in the family.) But the verse is from Isaiah 51:3.
He will make her wastelands like the garden of the Lord! What a glorious picture of redemption! I have to confess: now that the silence is breaking, I sometimes have been unsure of what to say or how to say it. I don't have it all figured out yet. There was a time when I thought I did have it all figured out. I had been to counseling and come through the dark days of depression with new eyes. And then ten years later, after Mom's death, I came to realize there are parts that still weigh heavy on me. For a while, it seemed easier to wait...wait to tell the story until I could confidently say, "The Lord has completely healed those broken places!" But the truth is that while there has been much healing, there are still evidences of the pain that line my heart. It never really goes away. For each of us, our hearts will always bear the tender scars that remind us that things aren't exactly like they were meant to be. But those scars remind us that we are ever in need of a Savior.
I have struggled often to answer the question "Why?" Why was this a part of our story? Why didn't the Lord rescue us from it earlier? I fully believe that God could have protected us from such neglect and that He could have ordered things to be much different than they were. So why? Sometimes when horrific things happen in our lives, well-meaning people will recite verses to us or remind us of truths we already know—like the fact that "God will use all things for the good of those that love Him" or "There is a reason for everything." I told myself those same things for years, putting band-aids on the wounds and burying these things alive. The "right" answers only dismissed my pain. Yes, maybe God will use our story to help someone else, but that doesn't make the pain any easier to bear. Sometimes just stating a truth to try to make someone (or yourself) feel better overlooks the very real hurt and grief that that person has experienced. Yes, God will use it for good. But this side of Heaven we may never see it, or understand it, or really fully believe it. However, one thing I do know is that as I have been willing to venture into that hurt and grief, instead of hiding behind the door of silence...the Lord has drawn me near. He has shown me more of Himself in those places than I ever would have imagined had I denied the pain and hidden the shame. It is in such times that I have seen the truth of Genesis 15:1 (NIV).
Indeed, if I never have a good explanation as to why, I do know that He has revealed more of Himself to me and it has been a reward, a joy! The light of God's glory is most beautiful when we see the reality of the darkness in which we have been living. And if we are unwilling to come face to face with that darkness, we deny ourselves the joy of really experiencing the beauty of the light!
And now, even with the scars, there are new verses written on the walls of my own home, verses on the wall of the little girl I put to bed every night.
And every time I say those promises to her and I find my heart yearning for her to know the depth of their truth, my heart longs to know those same things as well. Because I know that every little girl...my little girl...the one in these pictures and the one in my womb...as well as the little girl I never got to be...we all need to know the truth of those promises more than we need a tidy and functioning bedroom, more than a place to play and grow, more than dinner around the kitchen table, or working faucets. A relationship with our loving and faithful heavenly Father is the only thing that will ever bring true comfort, true peace, true joy, true freedom, true safety and true healing for whatever dark and lonely place we find in our story.
The Lord will surely comfort Zion and look with compassion on all her ruins,
He will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord.
Joy and gladness will be found in her, Thanksgiving and the sound of singing.
He will make her wastelands like the garden of the Lord! What a glorious picture of redemption! I have to confess: now that the silence is breaking, I sometimes have been unsure of what to say or how to say it. I don't have it all figured out yet. There was a time when I thought I did have it all figured out. I had been to counseling and come through the dark days of depression with new eyes. And then ten years later, after Mom's death, I came to realize there are parts that still weigh heavy on me. For a while, it seemed easier to wait...wait to tell the story until I could confidently say, "The Lord has completely healed those broken places!" But the truth is that while there has been much healing, there are still evidences of the pain that line my heart. It never really goes away. For each of us, our hearts will always bear the tender scars that remind us that things aren't exactly like they were meant to be. But those scars remind us that we are ever in need of a Savior.
I have struggled often to answer the question "Why?" Why was this a part of our story? Why didn't the Lord rescue us from it earlier? I fully believe that God could have protected us from such neglect and that He could have ordered things to be much different than they were. So why? Sometimes when horrific things happen in our lives, well-meaning people will recite verses to us or remind us of truths we already know—like the fact that "God will use all things for the good of those that love Him" or "There is a reason for everything." I told myself those same things for years, putting band-aids on the wounds and burying these things alive. The "right" answers only dismissed my pain. Yes, maybe God will use our story to help someone else, but that doesn't make the pain any easier to bear. Sometimes just stating a truth to try to make someone (or yourself) feel better overlooks the very real hurt and grief that that person has experienced. Yes, God will use it for good. But this side of Heaven we may never see it, or understand it, or really fully believe it. However, one thing I do know is that as I have been willing to venture into that hurt and grief, instead of hiding behind the door of silence...the Lord has drawn me near. He has shown me more of Himself in those places than I ever would have imagined had I denied the pain and hidden the shame. It is in such times that I have seen the truth of Genesis 15:1 (NIV).
...I am your shield, your very great reward.
And now, even with the scars, there are new verses written on the walls of my own home, verses on the wall of the little girl I put to bed every night.
The Lord your God is with you.
He is mighty save.
He will take great delight in you.
He will quiet you with His love.
He will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17
And every time I say those promises to her and I find my heart yearning for her to know the depth of their truth, my heart longs to know those same things as well. Because I know that every little girl...my little girl...the one in these pictures and the one in my womb...as well as the little girl I never got to be...we all need to know the truth of those promises more than we need a tidy and functioning bedroom, more than a place to play and grow, more than dinner around the kitchen table, or working faucets. A relationship with our loving and faithful heavenly Father is the only thing that will ever bring true comfort, true peace, true joy, true freedom, true safety and true healing for whatever dark and lonely place we find in our story.
Read about Opening the Door here.
Read about The Living Room here.
Read about The Kitchen here.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Geoff's Bedroom
As we move on in the house, let me start by highlighting something that struck me when I first saw all these photos. The images appeared so bright to me! Naturally, for the sake of capturing the full scale of everything, we lit the rooms. But the reality is that when we lived there, most of the windows were covered and it was rather dark inside. Even more so when we returned to take the pictures and the light fixtures weren't working. The exception to this was in the bedrooms. Our bedrooms were above the garage and since people couldn't see directly in, we could keep the curtains open. Additionally, the AC didn't work, so the windows were open 24/7 in the summer months. This also allowed us to talk a lot through the windows to neighbors or friends in the driveway.
As I mentioned in previous posts, we didn't watch TV in the living room or eat in the kitchen, which meant we spent most of our time in our bedrooms. Geoff's room, in particular, became a substitute living room of sorts. The TV had been moved there at some point, and from then on it became a gathering place for us. While most of the carpet couldn't be seen in the rest of the house, there were patches of Geoff's carpet that were clear at the time. It was a royal blue carpet, which I'm sure was cool at some point in history. We would order pizza on Friday nights and watch TV or play Nintendo in his room. I'm sure he hated it...having mom and me in his room all the time with nowhere else in the house for him to go, but he seemed to take it in stride. However, by the time we went back, the room looked more like everywhere else in the house.
Generally speaking, Geoff's room holds happy memories for me. (With the exception of when we would play Nintendo and Geoff would pause me over a jump and kill me on purpose. Although I'm pretty sure that has more to do with having a big brother than with anything having to do with the house.) I also remember that we used to clean up Geoff's room entirely the week before Valentine's Day and then decorate it with balloons and streamers and surprise Mom. It was all meant to be a display of our love for her, but unfortunately, I don't think any area of the house getting cleaned up without her involvement led to much joy or gratitude. The same was true when my grandpa surprised her by cleaning out the garage one time. It was disastrous and led to months of silence between them.
Living behind the walls of hoarder is a terrible life of silence and secrecy that leads to loneliness and a deep need for acceptance. Wanting desperately for people to love you but knowing you can't really let them know all of you. Although those feelings may not have found their roots in Geoff's or my heart, we certainly felt the effects of them. I often still feel their residue and struggle to keep up appearances on the outside. And yet God has been so gracious in how He has carried me all these years. Slowly dealing with the wounds and allowing time to bring some healing. It hasn't been easy. Opening the door to friends was the first step. It was a really hard first step, but had fixing our brokenness been easy, I doubt the Lord would have freely given His innocent son to be slaughtered on the cross to deal with the deep depravity that our souls bear and to set us free from the weight of all our burdens. Again and again I am reminded of God's desire to "bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound" (Isaiah 61:1). And that promise is universal, not just to children of hoarders, but to all of us who have broken places of our lives that need real healing.
As I mentioned in previous posts, we didn't watch TV in the living room or eat in the kitchen, which meant we spent most of our time in our bedrooms. Geoff's room, in particular, became a substitute living room of sorts. The TV had been moved there at some point, and from then on it became a gathering place for us. While most of the carpet couldn't be seen in the rest of the house, there were patches of Geoff's carpet that were clear at the time. It was a royal blue carpet, which I'm sure was cool at some point in history. We would order pizza on Friday nights and watch TV or play Nintendo in his room. I'm sure he hated it...having mom and me in his room all the time with nowhere else in the house for him to go, but he seemed to take it in stride. However, by the time we went back, the room looked more like everywhere else in the house.
Photo © Geoff Johnson
Generally speaking, Geoff's room holds happy memories for me. (With the exception of when we would play Nintendo and Geoff would pause me over a jump and kill me on purpose. Although I'm pretty sure that has more to do with having a big brother than with anything having to do with the house.) I also remember that we used to clean up Geoff's room entirely the week before Valentine's Day and then decorate it with balloons and streamers and surprise Mom. It was all meant to be a display of our love for her, but unfortunately, I don't think any area of the house getting cleaned up without her involvement led to much joy or gratitude. The same was true when my grandpa surprised her by cleaning out the garage one time. It was disastrous and led to months of silence between them.
Living behind the walls of hoarder is a terrible life of silence and secrecy that leads to loneliness and a deep need for acceptance. Wanting desperately for people to love you but knowing you can't really let them know all of you. Although those feelings may not have found their roots in Geoff's or my heart, we certainly felt the effects of them. I often still feel their residue and struggle to keep up appearances on the outside. And yet God has been so gracious in how He has carried me all these years. Slowly dealing with the wounds and allowing time to bring some healing. It hasn't been easy. Opening the door to friends was the first step. It was a really hard first step, but had fixing our brokenness been easy, I doubt the Lord would have freely given His innocent son to be slaughtered on the cross to deal with the deep depravity that our souls bear and to set us free from the weight of all our burdens. Again and again I am reminded of God's desire to "bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound" (Isaiah 61:1). And that promise is universal, not just to children of hoarders, but to all of us who have broken places of our lives that need real healing.
Read about Opening the Door here.
Read about The Living Room here.
Read about The Kitchen here.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
The Bathroom
This image that Geoff captured of the bathroom is appalling but it is one of the two that were selected to be published in American Photography 30. I think that seeing my daughter in the picture is even more unnerving. It stirs a bit of anger in me and rightly so...no child should ever have to live in these conditions! And so, in the midst of all these posts, I want to stop and ask you...do you know someone living like this? It is hard to know for sure, I know because they likely won't let you in to see. Maybe they never invite you inside, maybe their windows are constantly covered, maybe they are slow to answer the door. But are there children involved? I know it is easier not to get involved. What will happen if you do? Will it ruin your relationship with that person? Will the results really be better for the kids? I think if it isn't physical or sexual abuse it is easy to say that they are still safe. But please, I beg you...be a voice for that child! They may not even realize things aren't right, more than likely they will never speak up about it out of fear and out of love for their parent. But they are being neglected in so many ways and will grow up with deep wounds if you just brush it off and say, "It isn't my business how they live."
What kind of wounds you might wonder? The bathroom gives you just a glimpse into such things. The bathroom is a place that is home to so many things that should be private...like showering, going to the bathroom, dealing with your menstrual cycle. And not only do you want privacy for those things yourself, but it can be embarrassing to see others in those same situations. However, when there is too much stuff stacked in front of the door for it to close even a few inches, you are left to do all those things with the door wide open. To this day I have no idea why my mom never put a shower curtain up to provide privacy while we bathed, but she didn't. When we were little we took baths and it wasn't a big deal. But eventually it would become a terribly awkward situation.
Behind the tub faucet the tiles and drywall had been removed and never replaced. Mom didn't want water to get into the walls so we were left to suds up and rinse. We did it as fast as possible because the door was wide open, and especially quickly in the winter because it was so miserably cold. It led to all sorts of shame and self consciousness and issues with my body image. But, the kitchen sink didn't work and neither did the bathroom sink so besides a flushing toilet, the tub was the only running water in the house. Bathing, teeth brushing, hand washing, lemonade making...it all happened from the tub faucet. Eventually, about a year or so after I moved out, the pipes froze and there was no more water in the house at all. That is what ultimately led Geoff to leave as well.
I never really thought much about it from Geoff's perspective until we went back to the house together. He was the only boy in the house with two females and a bathroom door that didn't close. He spoke of how he trained himself to almost ignore that the bathroom was there when he walked quickly down the hall.
The hall itself was just another place for stuff to get stacked, not serving much purpose other than for getting from our rooms to the front door. This picture almost doesn't do it justice because as a child I remember a bigger pile of stuff against the left wall that spread the entire length of the hall. It seems to me that most of it was newspaper, but I'm not exactly sure. And although I don't remember what all that pile contained, I do know that to me it seemed like a long skinny table that was about waist high and took up about half the of hallway leaving a small trail to walk down. It is also hard to tell from the photo is just how deep the pile of stuff is that lines the floor. You can get a better idea if you look in the lower right corner of the image and see the furnace return. It stood probably about 12-15 inches off the ground, but as you can see it is mostly covered with junk.
I think the best way to describe it all is with the words a counselor spoke to me a few years ago. While some hoarders have piles of papers or stacks of boxes...there was no such order in our house. It really was like living in a garbage dump. Even so, I love what one of my dear friends said. She is one of the few that came into the house with me a few years ago and as she looked around she very rightly compared it all to the condition of our hearts. Full of junk...full of sin...anger, bitterness, jealousy, pride, fear, selfishness, impatience, an ungrateful spirit. And that is where we live, learning to survive around all the garbage and much like my brother and I as children didn't know any different, all of us are often unaware that things aren't meant to be this way, unaware that there is hope and life offered to us through Jesus Christ and that our hearts can be made clean!
Photo © Geoff Johnson
What kind of wounds you might wonder? The bathroom gives you just a glimpse into such things. The bathroom is a place that is home to so many things that should be private...like showering, going to the bathroom, dealing with your menstrual cycle. And not only do you want privacy for those things yourself, but it can be embarrassing to see others in those same situations. However, when there is too much stuff stacked in front of the door for it to close even a few inches, you are left to do all those things with the door wide open. To this day I have no idea why my mom never put a shower curtain up to provide privacy while we bathed, but she didn't. When we were little we took baths and it wasn't a big deal. But eventually it would become a terribly awkward situation.
Behind the tub faucet the tiles and drywall had been removed and never replaced. Mom didn't want water to get into the walls so we were left to suds up and rinse. We did it as fast as possible because the door was wide open, and especially quickly in the winter because it was so miserably cold. It led to all sorts of shame and self consciousness and issues with my body image. But, the kitchen sink didn't work and neither did the bathroom sink so besides a flushing toilet, the tub was the only running water in the house. Bathing, teeth brushing, hand washing, lemonade making...it all happened from the tub faucet. Eventually, about a year or so after I moved out, the pipes froze and there was no more water in the house at all. That is what ultimately led Geoff to leave as well.
I never really thought much about it from Geoff's perspective until we went back to the house together. He was the only boy in the house with two females and a bathroom door that didn't close. He spoke of how he trained himself to almost ignore that the bathroom was there when he walked quickly down the hall.
The hall itself was just another place for stuff to get stacked, not serving much purpose other than for getting from our rooms to the front door. This picture almost doesn't do it justice because as a child I remember a bigger pile of stuff against the left wall that spread the entire length of the hall. It seems to me that most of it was newspaper, but I'm not exactly sure. And although I don't remember what all that pile contained, I do know that to me it seemed like a long skinny table that was about waist high and took up about half the of hallway leaving a small trail to walk down. It is also hard to tell from the photo is just how deep the pile of stuff is that lines the floor. You can get a better idea if you look in the lower right corner of the image and see the furnace return. It stood probably about 12-15 inches off the ground, but as you can see it is mostly covered with junk.
Photo © Geoff Johnson
I think the best way to describe it all is with the words a counselor spoke to me a few years ago. While some hoarders have piles of papers or stacks of boxes...there was no such order in our house. It really was like living in a garbage dump. Even so, I love what one of my dear friends said. She is one of the few that came into the house with me a few years ago and as she looked around she very rightly compared it all to the condition of our hearts. Full of junk...full of sin...anger, bitterness, jealousy, pride, fear, selfishness, impatience, an ungrateful spirit. And that is where we live, learning to survive around all the garbage and much like my brother and I as children didn't know any different, all of us are often unaware that things aren't meant to be this way, unaware that there is hope and life offered to us through Jesus Christ and that our hearts can be made clean!
Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
Isaiah 1:18
Read about Opening the Door here.
Read about The Living Room here.
Read about The Kitchen here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)