Jesus and I,
we’ve built this house, you see.
(The old one had to be demolished,
bit by bit).
Everything inside is sparkling-new,
and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
We have spent hours together
deciding where each piece should go,
each in its proper place.
But then Jesus says,
“What about the stuff in the shed?”
I was hoping he wouldn’t notice,
or at least leave sleeping dogs lie.
But no.
To my shame,
he wants to trawl through it,
examining bits and pieces from my past,
things I didn’t know how to part with,
things that followed my every move,
refusing to go away,
tripping me up,
weighing me down,
all locked away in my fear-space –
that terrible, terrible fear
of being rejected,
of being hurt yet again.
I had tried so hard to consign these things to the dump
so that I could stand before Jesus
as a new and clean person,
(after all, isn’t that what I was supposed to do?)
but nothing seemed to work.
And so hiding them away in a shed
at the bottom of the garden
was the best I could do,
lest I upset the ambiance
of the new house –
the ‘Feng shui’
so to speak.
“This new house is yours,” he says,
“and every aspect of you must live here,
even what you consider to be the worst.
How can I finish my work
if you hold back what is so much a part of you?
But only you can unlock the shed.”
So, reluctantly, that’s what I do,
and fearfully begin to pick through
the dust and cobwebs,
tearfully handing him one object at a time.
I expect rebuke and censure,
but he lovingly takes each item
back to the house,
to carefully find the exact place for it.
Then, stepping back says,
“There. That’s where it belongs.
It’s quite beautiful, don’t you think?”
and smiles,
clearly satisfied with his work.
After a while
my shed will be empty,
and my whole life will be in this new house,
every piece of it loved and cherished,
so that the old
that was hidden and shameful
will be lovingly restored
to take its rightful place
among the new,
in the Feng shui of Jesus.