Bits and pieces cluttered the small pretty white desk in my eldest daughter’s room. Coloured pencils and markers had made their way out of their shiny glass cages and now laid in messy piles whispering tales of masterpieces once created.

The messiness contrived by the creative mind at work is not considered a mess to its creator.

I busied myself tidying the desk sorting the useful from the broken. The broken moved from the cup of my hands to the pit of the garbage can. Among the masses was a long abandoned pen, its figurine topper now missing and the ink nearly run dry. In my eyes it was leftover waste of time gone by, well used and now used up.

Fast forward a few hours to bedtime and my eldest is brushing her pearly whites to a glossy finish. Her eyes begin to roam the washroom and she spots said abandoned pen in the trash can. In mere moments the brush was out of her mouth and the broken abandoned pen was in her hot little hand. I am accosted in the doorway of my room and peppered with questions from one curious little girl wanting to know why I felt her pen worthy of its final resting place in the trash. I share my reasons, none of which seem to satisfy her curiosity for she has already cast judgement at my defence. She is now waving the pen wildly in the air above her head proclaiming, “This pen is not trash Mom. This – this pen – is a memory.”

I am left in the doorway speechless to her antics and dramatic flair. And I think to myself some memories that we hold onto so tightly are just that, trash.

We are in great need of a mighty Saviour to sort the useful from the broken; the cup of His big hands taking the broken memories and placing them in the waste where they belong. For too many of God’s children stand lost among the masses with empty glory days behind them and a spirit nearly run dry. Many feel used and nearly used up.

But this is not truth for in Him we are never abandoned nor useless. The memories of unworthiness that plague our souls must be bagged up and kicked to the curb where they will be carted away.

It is time to clean up the mess my child for today is garbage day.

Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean, scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don’t look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don’t throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails! Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. Unbutton my lips, dear God; I’ll let loose with your praise.
Psalm 51:7-15 (The Message)