Mice in our couches.
Feb 24th by Jon- Tagged in:
- serious wednesdays
“We found a family of mice that nested inside the cushions of your couch, so we need to throw it away.”
That was what a woman on a recent television show said to a homeowner. This is the moment where the homeowner says, “Wow, I had no idea. Gross, a whole family? Ugh, let’s throw that out.” But because the show I was watching is called “Hoarders,” that wasn’t the response she gave. Instead, the old woman whose home was on the borders of being condemned said simply,
“No, we’re keeping it.”
That’s a sentence you hear a lot on that show, a program that is almost as difficult to watch as “Intervention.” The thesis of Hoarders is pretty simple, therapists and home cleaning experts help a family try to dig out of an addiction. Typically there are mountains of trash throughout the house with small pathways worn into the garbage that serve as walkways from room to room.
A lot of the time, the crew has been sent to the house because something traumatic has happened to the hoarder. Often, as I mentioned, the state has removed children from the home, the waste high trash and bugs and mold far too dangerous for tottering toddlers. And it’s a sad show, because often, the people lose their kids in order to maintain their hoarding lifestyle. The trash is more important. The numbness that hoarding offers is too enticing and you watch in shock as everything in life is given up so that a homeowner can crawl back inside a warm rubbish cocoon.
It’s easy to judge people like this. Their pain is so plain and visible. Once you’re inside the front door, there’s no pretending that something in life is significantly broken. Mountains of trash are easy to point the finger at. A hoarder can’t hide.
But watching it the other day, I thought about the danger of the hoarders you can’t see. The people who surround us every day that hoard things a lot more subtle than phone books they can’t part with or clothing they’ve never even taken out of the shopping bags or food that has long gone bad. I thought about the people who hoard things like hurt and shame and guilt.
You can’t see those people nearly as easily. Unlike the cat woman who had dozens of decomposing dead cats within her house, they never smell so strongly that neighbors alert the authorities. But the truth is, lots of us hoard just as badly as the people on that show.
I think part of the reason is that if you get hurt enough, you start to think you deserve it. Like an itchy wool sweater that doesn’t really fit right, you keep putting on hurt. You keep collecting it. Dating guys that are going to treat you like trash. Surrounding yourself with people who want to use you, running from friendships and opportunities that feel good.
I used to do this a lot. Like a hoarder who is used to bad moments, the good ones didn’t feel right. I know that sounds dumb, but it’s true. I kept drilling holes in the ship of my life whenever things started to go well. Counselors talk about that a lot. They say the two most popular times for people to hurt themselves is when they feel really low or feel really good. Good doesn’t feel right, you don’t feel like you’re good enough for good. And so you wreck things all over again. You sink the ship, you hoard.
Maybe that doesn’t sound familiar at all. Maybe you hoard hurt and shame because at least you can feel those things. Like a cutter who wants to make sure he can still feel something, you hold onto hurt because it breaks through the numbness of your day. Even though it’s pain, at least it’s a feeling. Or maybe you’ve never hoarded a negative emotion in your life and this all sounds weird.
I’m not sure where you’re at, but I know where God is. In Psalm 103, it’s laid out clearly, when it says, Praise the Lord:
“who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,”
There is not an insignificant word in that verse. From forgives to heals to my favorite word, “all,” that is a birthday card written to you. That is a love letter written to the hoarders who are having such a hard time letting go. You don’t have to heal your diseases. You don’t have to hold on to your hurt.
The “God of all” is here. The God of forgiveness is near. The God of heal is waiting.
We all get mice in our couches and trash in our hearts, but that’s OK.
You’ve got a God bigger than that. The God of all.
And that’s all I need to know.
Comments
*sighs* Discovered your blog/site a couple weeks ago Jon (through someone else's recommendation on Facebook) and clearly I enjoy it greatly since I'm still here keeping up everyday. I haven't commented before but thought I might as well say something today given that this post is timely for my life. (Not that you don't always have something edifying to say…)
I think my mother is a definite hoarder. Pain, rejection, suffering, victim…she holds on to it all. She won't let it go. She's said it herself that she's never going to be able to get over it. That "having Jesus only goes so far"….one of the saddest things she says. And you know for the most part its easy to go on through life passing the days like this, but then something happens or something reminds her of her situation and she snaps and lashes out at everything and everyone, sometimes in ways that are detrimental not just to her but to everyone. And when I, as her daughter, cannot force myself to agree with her choices despite understanding the place of hurt its coming from, suddenly I became yet another enemy to her. Yet another person who "doesn't understand," "doesn't get it,"…"doesn't love her." Nothing could be farther from the truth…it hurts me so much when she says things like that…when she thinks that I don't love her or I don't care or I don't understand. No, I can't understand most of what she's gone through as I haven't PERSONALLY gone through it, BUT I have witnessed her suffering my entire life. I have compassion and sympathy for it, but I can't bring myself to agree with some of the choices she makes because of it.
I don't know what to do with that or how to handle it. If she won't believe me AND she won't let go of the pain, she's just going to keep suffering….and when she's sad, I'm sad.
This cycle keeps repeating, and I just don't know what to do (besides praying of course….I think that's all I can do…pray and hope for the best.)
-Jackie
I agree. I have sabotaged myself for so long, and still see the consequences from it years later. My own expectations and fear of success caused me to do some really stupid things. Even now, going forward and trying to regain what I lost, there are so many obstacles and struggles against it that I wonder if I should keep going toward that goal. If you screw up the thing you wanted most, the thing you should spend your life doing, do you get a do over? Or should I just be glad I'm forgiven?
Also, thanks for reminding me I need to clean up my house. Great post.
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I think that we all need a revelation of God's grace in our lives. Like you said, he is God of ALL. I have a really hard time with failure. I don't like to fail, I mean who does, but it is almost a paralyzing fear. It keeps me from going out on a limb or doing something that I am unsure of the outcome. If I don't think I will be a great success I don't do it. I know its totally lame, but its true. God has been teaching me that I need to understand his grace. I need grace to fail. Maybe that sounds weird, but you can never achieve anything if you are always afraid of failing.
God's grace covers all our shame, guilt, and fear. That is what he is saving us from. Daily.
Somehow I knew that today's post was going to be directed at me.
Serious Wednesdays.
I never miss one.
But sometimes I have to clear my schedule before I read it because I know it will spin me around a bit.
(And clearing a schedule with five kids under six is no easy task, mind you.)
But thank you Jon – you deliver every Wednesday.
We all fall short…
Thanks for this post! It is a great reminder never to envy people who seemingly have it all together. You just never know what's going on inside of their hearts.
Wow! That is a powerful post! If faith is in the unseen so lies are traps and shackles. No wonder God is the God who SEES. Secrecy and shame truly are rotting trash stuffed in the houses of our hearts.
I encourage all to see Tyler Perry's newest play "Madea's Big Happy Family". He addresses that same issue.
Jon, you gave me lots to think about. Thanks!
"Maybe you hoard hurt and shame because at least you can feel those things. Like a cutter who wants to make sure he can still feel something, you hold onto hurt because it breaks through the numbness of your day. Even though it’s pain, at least it’s a feeling."
Well put. This is why my favorite song lyric is "Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive" from "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls.
Great post! Anyone that's ever dealt with just about anything knows how frustrating it is when someone says "just stop", "get over it", or "shake it off". Most of these surface addictions and dysfunctions point to a deeper issue. Simply changing the behavior just makes everyone else more comfortable.
This is exactly what I needed today. I am a hoarder of bad emotions and bad events in my life. Last semester I was in counseling at the clinic on campus, and that helped me let go of the things I tend to stack away and replay, but I'm going it alone this semester and sometimes it gets tough. I hold on to all my past hurts, and anytime I'm in a similar situation, I expect the bad to happen again. It's so unhealthy, and I'm fully aware. It's just hard to let go and trust that everything will be okay in the end.
My tendency is to catch and stuff the mice, like Jan Itor's squirrel army. That way I can keep the couch and sit on it while I play with them, pretending they're harmless. I never plan to. I always intend to throw the lot away, and every now and then I do, but because I keep the couch …
Great post, Jon.
During the Loma Prieta earthquake of 89, I thought there were mice crawling under the couch — it was just an earthquake. hahaha
and just a sidenote, there is something to be said about the mental disease behind hoarding – it's an obsessive compulsive disorder. that's all.
I don't often comment over here, but Wow.
Wow.
jon just thought this was interesting
http://www.tomsshoes.com/content.asp?tid=284
Wow – this spoke directly to me today. Thank you. This: I think part of the reason is that if you get hurt enough, you start to think you deserve it. Like an itchy wool sweater that doesn’t really fit right, you keep putting on hurt. You keep collecting it. Dating guys that are going to treat you like trash. Surrounding yourself with people who want to use you, running from friendships and opportunities that feel good. – Wow that is me to a T. Thanks for reminding me that God is bigger than all of my insecurities and self-inflicted hurt.
I needed this. Hi, my name is Abigail and I'm a hoarder of the bad feelings I get when I feel ashamed of my wrongdoings. I can't let them go. But I'm trying all the time!!
And the ones He doesn't heal serve to bring Him glory. He is a God that lifts us in our brokennness when we ask for help. Takes humilty to accept that we don't have it all figred out.
I used to help run a group for women who had been abused and were trying to move forward with their lives, so the issue of dealing with the pain and the hurt from the past came up a lot. One of the women talked about holding onto the pain because it was so familiar that it was a safe place for her to live and retreat to… that painful and familiar was better than the unknown of working through the pain and moving forward into a new way of coping and relating. It's doesn't feel safe letting go of the defenses and the things we carry around as part of our identity. For me it was very scary even hoping that God could be the one being in the universe that could heal and forgive like that. But it was an amazingly wonderful surprise that He really could be trusted, and that life could be better without as much of the emotional baggage. It's good to know He's still about the buisness of doing the follow up decluttering too so it doesn't go back to the way it was before. Thanks Jon.
"You don’t have to heal your diseases. You don’t have to hold on to your hurt."
I think that's the hardest thing for anyone to get – that it doesn't depend on us one bit. It's ALL God – and until we accept that forgiveness and healing, those mice in our couches are just going to continue to multiply.
[...] Mice in our couches (Stuff Christians Like – Jon Acuff – @prodigaljohn) [...]
Hoarding is not an addiction. Its an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
Wow. I've had to deal with this a lot. Pretty much everything you were saying! I needed this today. Thanks.
I 'd been doing emotional hoarding for so long, I began to physically hoard, only I didn't realize what I was doing. Unfortunately, I've had an actual mouse in the sofa situation – although I did get rid of the sofa; but I didn't immediately see my problem. About 6 months later I made some decisions to clear out the emotional baggage – that was given to me by my mother at the age of 8years old – I was 38 when I finally made that decision. Found out the hard way that others – the ones who gave you baggage- don't want you sorting through and clearing out. Went through some very hard times- and began to relapse. Finally got to a point on yesterday in church – GOD is so good- where I gave HIM all of it. The stuff I knew about and the stuff I didn't. Now I have to start on the physical stuff and It is hard; while I am committed, I know this is not going to be easy.
Then I stumbled upon your site, while looking at someones FB page and then going through Dave Ramsey's page. I read a few things and laughed real good. Then wham. I know this was for me though. It was God's way of reminding me that he's there for me and with me while I go through this. Amazing how the LORD will take you where you need to be
thanks for this post, i know it's old but so what…..i needed it today.