Lost in the Dirt
by Lindsey Hanekom
Once, when I was cleaning my kitchen floor I moved a piece of furniture that, I must admit, I normally cleaned around. As I moved the furniture and the light poured into the darkness, I was amazed at the amount of dust and dirt that had collected under there, as well as an inordinate amount of small objects that had been lost for some time and almost forgotten about.
I was instantly reminded of the story in Luke 15, where a woman had lost a coin and had to search her house to find it. The coin obviously meant a lot to her, hence the reason she set about a cleaning spree to find it. I was intrigued by the difference in our reasons to clean the darker areas of our respective homes.
Whilst this lady was searching for something precious, I was cleaning because I had came to the point where I finally admitted to myself that there was a place in my kitchen that I had ignored for too long.
It seems as though it is similar as to how we approach the healing needs in our lives. Some of us know that there is a treasured part of our real self that has been lost in the dirt and grime and we long to find it again. For others of us, we acknowledge there is a place that has long been ignored and is in desperate need of cleaning; yet there is lost treasure there too!
Whilst we can work hard at keeping the visible areas of our lives neat and tidy, there are often areas that we ignore, thinking that since they are hidden, they are unimportant. One thing is clear – the lost treasure is in the dirt and the mess and it is through shining light into those areas and setting about cleaning the mess that the treasure is found once again.
It is a process, it takes time and it takes the courage to face what has been ignored for so long. All that said, you never know what you will find when you start cleaning – there may be more there than you expect!
Prayer: Father God, I recognise that there are areas of my life that are ignored and forgotten about but it is there that I hope to find some lost treasure. Please shine Your light into the ignored places so that Your cleansing may go deeper than I have allowed it before. Amen.
Lindsey Hanekom Lindsey has worked at all of our UK centres over the years and has settled at Ellel Scotland with her husband, Johann and their two young children, Kyle and Zoe. As part of the Leadership Team at Ellel Scotland, Lindsey has a heart for the deeply broken as she oversees the prayer ministry and is an established and passionate teacher with Ellel. In her spare time, Lindsey enjoys the natural world, particularly the ocean, and is trained as a specialist medic to assist stranded and injured marine mammals.
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