Unfinished Spaces

A view from our porch window.

Last year we did a pretty major remodel in our home. Between the kitchen, dining room, breakfast area and family room, we removed sections of walls, took out dark, heavy cabinets and a stone fireplace. We rearranged furniture, lightened the colors and added cabinets for better storage. And when we removed the fireplace, it also opened up our porch. The whole space breathes now. There is light and room to move around when our growing family is here.

But there are also unfinished spaces in our house. Not so much because they need remodeling, but because they are cluttered, just too much STUFF that we brought with us when we downsized almost six years ago. There is such a clear distinction between how I feel when I’m in the uncluttered, finished spaces and the cluttered, unfinished spaces.

This morning I was hanging out in John 15, where Jesus talks about how He is the vine and we are the branches, and how life as He intends, life to the full, happens when we remain in Him and He remains in us.

I looked up the word remain in the Greek. The definition included words like abide, tarry, be present, remain continually, dwell. It made me think of our home. It isn’t a place where I drop in for a visit. I live there continually. The address doesn’t change from moment to moment. And then all of a sudden, I saw this passage in a different light.

For so many years I have thought of my struggle with abiding as one that is about coming and going. But as I thought about our home, I’m not sure that’s the case. A branch makes its home connected to the vine. It lives there continually.

As I thought about what it has meant for me to make a home literally, I thought about my heart. Over the last 27 years, God has done a lot of tearing down and making new, in the rooms of my heart. I think it’s fair to say there have been complete remodels, breathing life and light, freedom and joy into once dark and heavy places.

But there are still unfinished spaces too. Spaces that are still cluttered, where I keep the door closed and the windows covered because, frankly, they’re like the unfinished spaces in our house. It’s overwhelming to think about them, and sometimes I just don’t know where to begin.

Like our house, those unfinished rooms in my heart steal some of my joy and life because I can never completely escape them. They are a persistent distraction from enjoying the beauty of what is and a thief of what could be. Maybe abiding is less about coming and going and more about giving Him access to my whole heart.

But here’s the beauty of Jesus’ invitation in John 15: He doesn’t tell us to clean up our hearts first. He is willing to make His home with us and live with us during the remodel, rebuild and restoration process. And He will never force His way into the dark, unfinished spaces.

But I am learning that as I grow, He makes me more and more aware of what is unfinished because it lives in such contrast and contradiction to the places where He’s been at work tearing down walls, cleaning out the garbage and breathing love, life, joy and freedom into the space.

I know which room to start with in our house, and I think it’s time to ask Him which room He would like an invitation into, in my heart.

I think I already have an idea what He’ll show me.

Discovering the wonder of Holy Ground right beneath my feet,

Sharla