\u201cFor nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it should come to light.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark 4:22<\/p>\n
Just like the hole in my ceiling from the ice and snow damage of the winter is obvious to others when they walk in my kitchen, so are the lumps of troubles, sins, and junk we sweep under the carpet of life. Everyone notices it. They walk in, see the imperfection and keep on talking. I think I know what they\u2019re thinking. Something like, \u201cWow, I wonder if they\u2019ll ever fix that hole in the ceiling (or lumps in the carpet). It seems like they don\u2019t even notice it.\u201d Well, they\u2019d be right. I don\u2019t notice it \u2013 it has become a fixture with which I\u2019m comfortable. AND, I don\u2019t want to fix it. The reason I don\u2019t want to fix it is because I know the mess it will make. To fix my ceiling there will be dry wall dust laying on and sitting in every corner, cupboard, and cranny. How do I know that? I\u2019ve been this route probably 4 other times: different homes; same scenario.<\/p>\n
The carpet of life, and the troubles, sins, and junk we sweep under it is so much the same. While everyone else can clearly see the lumps and bumps, we continue to move past them like they don\u2019t exist. WHY? We\u2019ve become comfortable with them. We hide them well. It\u2019s easier to leave the lumps there than it is to fix it. If we fix it that means we\u2019ll be stirring up a lot of mess. It will take time to deal with the whole issue and everything and everyone involved before it\u2019s properly back in working order.<\/p>\n
Sadly, as we mentor others, we\u2019ve noticed that point when a person we\u2019re working with just wants to be happy in their sin-filled, junky, troubled life. It would take too much to fix it and why would one bother to fix it when they seem to be hiding it and controlling the outward appearance just fine (or so they think!). That\u2019s the kicker, isn\u2019t it? They think they\u2019re hiding it, but most everyone sees it like a third eye on their face.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve learned to manage their addiction, their lying, their adultery, their spending habits and debt, and all their junk by going to church, serving the community, going to work faithfully, etc. as they try to portray the essence of being a stellar Christian. The problem: they are the only ones who see themselves that way. Little by little the fa\u00e7ade breaks down: first in their personal life, then with their spouse, then their family, then workers, friends, and the ripple affect continues. But guess what. They don\u2019t care. They don\u2019t want to make the effort to fix the mess.<\/p>\n
There is a great danger in continuing to sweep things under the carpet.\u00a0 The danger spots are so obvious one has learned to navigate them. It\u2019s done so well that they hardly know they\u2019re there, but others couldn\u2019t miss them! Just one lift of that carpet and everything is exposed.<\/p>\n
God does that to our hearts but he wants us to lift the carpet and ask Him how to deal with it all. He lets us know that He sees and knows everything. We might think we are protecting ourselves and our loved ones by sweeping things under the carpet, but nothing can be hidden from God.<\/p>\n
We can either take the step to move forward in making things right or simply stay in our troubles, sin, and junk and say, \u201cI don\u2019t want to fix it.\u201d What we think we hide will then affects everyone around us and the rest of us get to try to fix what someone else refused to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cFor nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it should come to light.\u201d Mark 4:22 Just like the hole in my ceiling from the ice and snow damage of the winter is obvious to others when they walk in my kitchen, so are the lumps of troubles, sins, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindiferrini.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}