What Lies Beneath
On a joyful March morning the other day, I had gotten up after a wonderfully restful sleep. I find it strange to call the days in March “winter” in our part of the world, but nonetheless, the calendar still points to the first three weeks of March as being winter. We do get our March surprises from time to time here in Arkansas, like a late frost or snowfall. Hopefully we’re home free for this year.
Having finished a round or two or three of my morning coffee, along with some good time of reflection, Bible reading and prayer, I saw several of our children out the door on their way to the working world elsewhere. Praise the Lord for grown children that responsibly get up, get going and get off to work to earn a living. That is a gift to be grateful for indeed!
I had a head full of notions for what I would accomplish for the day, not the least of which was making some progress on my writing. A bill or two to be paid and sheep tending was also on my schedule, and maybe even a good walk to the creek to get my exercise. Before the day got too busy, I put on a light jacket and walked our large, wheeled trashcan down to the road and made sure the sheep had ample water.
The thick carpet of grass and weeds in our yard had collected a generous amount of dew through the night which made for a very wet ground cover. As I walked down the driveway, I couldn’t help but notice the tiny lavender flowers scattered throughout a good portion of our yard. They were bent over like hunchbacks and closed up, apparently still asleep and waiting for just the right invitation from the sun so they could open up for the day. The cool morning was beginning to show signs of departing as the sun gained momentum in the sky, warming the air by the minute.
Once I had returned from my errand of refuse removal, I headed in through the back door ready to check the status of my bride, who was in our bathroom preparing herself to take on the world outside our home. As I walked into our bathroom, I caught the scent of something that was surely not Miss Katrina. We exchanged glances, and she must have sensed what I was thinking.
“Do you smell that?” she asked.
The look on my face must have indicated a “yes” vote. We had both been dealing with a little bit of stuffiness from allergies, but whatever was overcoming our airspace was unbearable and having no problem getting through our nasal passages. Then I looked past her and found the culprit, making my heart sink. The tub had been filling up with brown water backing up from our septic tank. Yuck!
Without hesitation I knew what I must do before the day progressed any further; unclog the line to the septic tank.
Thankfully, most of the family had made their exit, so the need for our precious indoor plumbing would be minimized. It was time for me to get to work. I had done this before, so my experience was of great value, expediting my work. Nonetheless, even after I accessed the cleanout pipe and worked on that a bit, it was just not doing the trick. That meant I had to get the shovel and go undercover, into the belly of the beast.
If you’ve ever had the privilege of digging up a septic tank to gain access to what’s inside, you will understand what I am about to tell you. It is a nasty, putrid, undesirable, disgusting business. It has the ability to put your gag reflex into overdrive, not for the weak of stomach.
When doing this nasty work, you go in with a purpose in mind. You are uncovering the slop, what lies beneath the beautiful grass above, for the sole purpose of draining it or fixing a leaky pipe or unclogging a log jam. There is a reason for your work. It is not just for your lack of something to do because you are bored, or because you want to discover what the inside of a septic looks and smells like. You get in, do your job, close it up tight and walk away.
Then you wash your hands with lots of soap twenty times throughout the remainder of the day.
What this reminds me of is the fact that so many people have things from their past, yucky, nasty things that they don’t deal with. They go through life, just letting the grass grow on top of their problems, hoping the messiness will go away. It works for a time, but during the process of life, the junk underneath the grass has issues and must be dealt with.
The problem is, some people just open up their life junk, over and over, just to smell it and tell everyone how bad their life stinks. Then they do nothing, put the lid back on, and dig it up again, over and over, never really fixing their stinking problems. And then one day, all of a sudden, the pipes in their “house” begin overflowing with sludge and they don’t know what to do.
The solution is that we must deal with our messiness and give all that junk to God. And then, when we’ve given it to God, we should leave it buried.
Many times, someone else will come along in our lives that are dealing with some of the same junk we have been through. It is in these moments that we can carefully unearth our past appropriately, not so we can smell the stench of it again, but so we can come alongside them, to let them know you understand what they’re dealing with.
What I’m trying to say here is, give your junk to God, then use the junk you’re no longer carrying to help others lighten their load. Make sense?
One last thought, though. We all have a past, a history, things that aren’t so glamorous. It’s part of our human condition. But not everything is worth digging up. Some things really are better off staying buried, just between you and God.
Praise the Lord, things are flowing freely again, out of sight, out of mind. I’m so grateful that I have the know-how to take care of the problem, the health and strength to get it done, the time freedom to take care of it right then and there, and the amazing weather that made everything so pleasant to deal with. And thank the Lord for soap!