Cleaning Out the Dust

     

     Smiling, she placed the finishing touches on her perfectly pressed white curtain. Slowly, she stepped back. What a beautiful sight! Fresh and clean, the scent filled the room with delight. Ah, how beautiful. The Light from the outdoors played into the room painting all kinds of different beautiful hues around her newly decorated haven. This was sure to be the place that she would find the deepest peace she had ever found before. Proud of her newly finished task, she stepped out to put a few much-needed tools back into their place. She grimaced quickly and with one eye closed placed the tools right inside the door of the musty, dust covered room. Quickly closing the door, she realized that room was for another day, or perhaps another week she thought to herself. When would she ever possibly find the time that she needed to increase the stamina and strength that she would need to sift through that old dust-filled space? Glad that nobody else was there to notice, she wrapped up the finishing touches to her crisp, white curtains and stood back to admire the look. Fresh, modern and clean.  She figured she would just turn her back in this direction because even the thought of the dust covered space made her insides wince. She pushed it out of her mind and moved to the next task at hand. Busying herself, she found many more things to keep her occupied and slowly the thought of that dusty room was pushed away and only the thought of the white, beautiful, stark and perfect new curtains remained in her mind. It was her little secret. Only she would really ever see that room anyway. Or so she thought.

Weeks later with time flying past she ducked into the dusty space again out of necessity. She was driven by her perfection to keep the front of her home manicured well and the only tool she knew that would work was in that dust covered space. She braced herself and again with one eye closed winced through the dirt and found what she needed. Pulling it out and dusting it off gave her some relief. She knew that one little tool would keep her from having to revisit this dusty place for a while. Dusting her clothes off, she placed the tool in the sink and started to scrub away at it to remove the build up that had been cause by the lack of attention it had needed. Scrubbing every way that she knew how, she kept trying to bring it back to its usable state. She figured some of the build up would get in the way of what the tool really was meant to be used for.  Shocked a little at the amount of time this was taking, she decided to revert to looking back into the dusty place for something else. There had to be something there that could be used. Surely this was not the only tool that would do the job. Starting to panic a little knowing that company would be there soon, she held her breath and quickly dove in, to keep this visit as short as possible. Seeing some safety glasses by the door, she grabbed them to save her eyes from the harmful dust and entered this old, dusty place. Hearing the door bell ring, she tore off those glasses, threw down the tool and quickly patted her clothes for any dirty residue. Smiling, she opened the door, in a near panic on the inside. Much to her relief, it was just some young kids wanting to take a political survey. Kindly ushering them away, she shut the door to quickly get back to the task at hand. Armed and ready, glasses on this time, she dove into this dirty, musty space and opened her eyes.

There was something different about it. She couldn't figure out if it was the glasses or maybe the smell or what it was. To her horror, she realized that she had left the door ajar and the dust and the smell had seeped into the rest of her perfectly manicured house. Aghast and frustrated now, she quickly started fanning and opening the windows to let out the dusty fumes. Dust was settling all over her house now, and the smell, it just didn’t seem to be going away. This would never do. She would have to reschedule or maybe push her company back by a few hours. Trying to gather her thoughts, she could feel her heart beating out of her chest. How long would it take for her to recover from this complete and utter mess?? Mad at herself now for causing such chaos and being frustrated by her overall state of aggravation, she figured that there had to be something else that she could do.

Company or not, clean house or not, she was going to have to brave that dusty space and clean it out and make all of that dirty, clutter go away. This was it! She had been sweeping this under the carpet long enough. Changing into her working clothes and pulling her hair back, determined and ready, she stepped into the “war zone” as she decided that it should be called. Rifling through old things, she realized that none of these things were even worth keeping around. She opened up an old journal and saw that it read, “Believe me, the worst is coming.” “Stay in hiding, no one is coming,” and all sorts of things that she no longer believed. Now she realized why she had been avoiding this place so fervently. It was the place she had come before the pain had stopped. Before she had been set free.  She was disgusted by this place. It meant nothing but yucky feelings and broken hearts. She had experienced so much freedom since she had left this place behind her. Slowly, the dawning of the significance of this room meant so much to her. She had never looked back. She had been set free, she had watched everything be set as it should be, her world was set right side up, but she had locked the door on this part of her life and never looked back. And yet, here it was coming back, time and time again to haunt her, to ruin her beautiful new place of rest and to take all of her peace away yet again.

With a blink of an eye she knew what she must do. She made a quick call to the Loving Ones that had come before. The Ones with the loving hands and the sweet, gentle, loving arms. They showed up almost instantly. They helped her look through this gloomy, dusty past and as she looked through each dust, covered place, she handed The Ones the things she was longing to be free of forever. Slowly, they took the things away, if she wouldn’t have known better, she would’ve thought that those things just vanished into thin air. All that toxic waste and after a few hours of sifting through and letting go of the past, The Loving Ones asked if it would be o.k. if they joined hands and agreed that the past was gone and this place was no more. 

The Most Loving One stepped forward. 

He asked if instead of just emptying out this place of the old dusty things, He could replace them with something new. She agreed, wondering what He could do with this old, dusty place. And then as they joined hands the room started to shake, the ground became unsteady and bursts of light started the shine in. The walls instantly crumbled down and glass windows in their stead were clear and beautiful. The Loving Ones gathered around as the Most Loving One stretched out His hand. She came to Him in this new, peace-filled place and He said, “Thank you for letting me sift through the past with you and bring you something completely new.” This new aroma started to fill the air, she recognized it. It was the aroma of the Love that these Loving Ones carried with them. She jumped up and asked if they could please fill her home with this aroma, too. She grabbed the hand of the Most Loving One and together they ran from the top to the bottom of her home, out to the front porch.  She remembered that she should ask Him to help her with the one thing that she had been working on before He came. Surprisingly, that place that need to be fixed was completely done already and the house sort of just sang of beauty and that aroma she loved so much. She ran and swung open the front door. She wanted to be sure this aroma filled her yard and the air all around her place and perhaps it would even float into the place of others!

She stood there and smiled at the Most Loving One. 

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

The visit that I was preparing for was nothing compared to the true beauty that You and Your Loving Ones have shown me today. 

He assured her it was His pleasure.

She took a deep breath to smell the air around her one more time. Yes, indeed. It was fresh, clean and smelled just like the Most Loving One. What a refreshing way to live her days.