Out of Darkness

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light."
-I Peter 2:9

Well, it started out innocent enough...

December is one of my top twelve favorite months. This one is different than all the others in that I want to bake every single day! There are so many cozy, sweet memories for me in that. I love the smell of fresh bread and cookies filling the air. Anticipation of a warm cookie and glass of milk...or cocoa. Mmmm...

Anyway, yesterday I preheated the oven and started making some fresh bread. I opened the oven and it was cold. Oh no! Not today! Not any day, especially in December!!! Being quick on my feet, I thought I would set it to cleaning...just to see if that would heat it up. No such luck. In my valiant efforts, I now have locked my oven door. It will not open.

After a few hours, another great idea comes to me...read the manual. (Who would have thought?) I found nothing that would help my situation except to call the repair man. But, in my reading, there was a picture of how to open the panel to the bottom of my stove so that it can be cleaned! Are you kidding? I had never read this before. All these years, I have just stuck a broom under there to get what I could. Here, I could have been easily opening the panel. ("Who knew?" I ask myself. "All the people who read the manual!" I answer myself.)

Well, I am embarrassed to say (and yet I do) that the panel came off and 10 years of cheerios, goldfish crackers, golf balls and super nasty things greeted me. Those who know me, know that I love to clean and I love having clean spaces. This was disgustingly dirty.

I quickly got my cleaning tools out and got busy. As I was cleaning, I thought of the unclean places in my heart...the areas that no one knows about...maybe an area that I have been avoiding, or a place that I was simply unaware of. What ever the case may be, the "author of the manual" knows about it and how it should be maintained.

Just because I did not know about the area under the stove does not mean that it does not exist. If I had thoroughly read the manual, I would have known. I could have been cleaning this space out on a regular basis. It would not have gotten so nasty.

Lord, I want my heart to be cleaned on a regular basis, to be maintained! I want to know the manual so well, that whenever you look in the obscure spaces, you will find it pristine. Thank you for bringing things out of the dark and into your marvelous light.

Needless to say, my oven is on hiatus until the repair man can come next week. When he comes, he may be surprised at how clean I keep the underside of my stove.