For this topic, I offer an analogy that played out in my heart that had a profound effect on me.
Before I got into recovery, I met Christ at the door of my house. I told Him that He didn’t need to come in – I made the mess, I would clean it up, and someday my house would be clean enough for Him to come in without judging me and thinking I was stupid, slothful, and filthy. I sent Him away empty-handed.
Years passed and I realized I couldn’t clean up my house by myself. It was a filthy house with dirt and rotten food everywhere, questionable pictures hanging up everywhere, pictures mocking God, and hateful sayings written all over the walls. The roof was leaking, the foundation was cracked. And it was getting worse every day. I was ashamed of it. Satan whispered “quick, hide” whenever Christ came. “Good idea! I’ll keep hiding,” I thought. The house was falling apart and I started fearing that it would be destroyed more than I feared to let Christ in. I was done hiding.
The next time Christ came knocking, I opened the door to Him and quickly handed out a gift-wrapped bag of garbage for him to take with Him. I made sure the gift-wrapped garbage was shiny and nice looking so He wouldn’t hate me and think I was an incompetent, stupid, slob.
After years of this, and with tremendous horror, one day I let Him in. I closed my eyes and shrunk. I couldn’t bear to see the look of disappointment on His face as He looked around. It seemed like an eternity as I waited for Him to start telling me how dumb I was to have let my house get so dirty and for not knowing how to clean it up. And the hatred and abuse! How could I have done those things? Or worse, I feared He would just walk out and never come back after seeing what was inside. I wept, bracing myself for His wrath. Instead, He quietly knelt and started cleaning right there in the entry, inviting me to help where I could. I couldn’t believe it. How could He not destroy me and reject me after seeing this place? This turned my crying out of fear and shame into crying out of compassion and peace after all the fierce storms, hopelessness, shame, self-hatred, and loneliness.
Years passed and Christ was at my house again helping me clean. Christ heard cries coming from the basement – a place I had not taken Him yet. It had barbed wire and mattresses stacked as high as I could get it to keep it hidden. He said nothing – waiting for me to invite Him down there. Once He left, I went downstairs and found myself laying on the floor crying. “Shut up!” I yelled. “He heard you! I hate you for making me look so stupid all these years! You’re so stupid!” I was exhausted. He yelled back, “Stop beating me! It’s wrong! It’s evil!” Neither of us could stop. We both looked at each other and cried, exhausted. Something in us broke, and Christ quietly walked in and gently picked up the one who had been beaten and took his place on the floor. This freed both of us from that awful situation.
My heart changed that day and will never be the same. Since then, there have been smaller versions of this happening within me. As I let it, His atonement is quietly making its way into every aspect of my life – not just to resurrect me at the end of my life, but to receive the temptations, struggles, and pain I give to him, to make right the offenses I give not only to others but to myself. The only way I can attempt to repay Him is to willingly open the door to the next room, to willingly open my heart to Him one step at a time.
Participation in the recovery groups has brought me to this place because when I see a group of men nodding and understanding me, loving and respecting me, warts and all, I see Christ sitting before me – knowing me and what I’m going through and not condemning me but helping me clean. I can’t get that anywhere else in the world but these meetings. I can’t read it in a book. I can’t be told it. I must live it by placing myself in those meetings – meetings where I sit with people who understand me, respect me and love me – just as Christ would if He were there. And because these men have been exactly where I have been, I know they know what I’m going through – like Christ does.
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