Last night I was cleaning out the bathtub and putting my two-year old’s bath toys in the basket. She came next to me, placed her hands on the side of the tub, and watched as I squeezed the extra water from floating around inside the toys.
When we don’t do that, the mold seems to grow faster, destroys the toys, and makes for a disgusting bath time. As she watched me squeeze, she grabbed one for herself.
By the way, when someone says a child is too young to understand what’s going on, that’s a lie. They absolutely, positively, know, and feel it. It becomes a part of their critical development of their own childhood and who they become as an adult. So this is all good to remember that when we are talking to people a certain way, treating animals a certain way, and especially the way we love and respect our spouse; they see and absorb it all.
I’m far from being a perfect parent, but I at least want to example a kind and loving human being.
So she squeezed the toys with me, slowly cleaning out the tub and bath toys. You see, when you let water stay inside, it becomes stagnant, inviting bacteria and mold. I was totally grossed out when mold leaked from a toy during one bath time, and she was surrounded by slimy patches of gooey mold. Gross, right?
The Revelation
The same thing happens to us when we ignore stagnation or anything toxic within us. It could be something like guilt, shame, depression, fear of failure, doubt, unforgiveness, bitterness, lust, self-hate, jealousy, envy… it’s all stuff that becomes mold.
They seem so petty and harmless, right? But no. They grow like a cancer. We become a breeding ground for toxic growth and eat away at us from the inside out.
When we carry around unforgiveness, it will mold and destroy our insides, float around in our minds, thoughts, actions, and our physical bodies. The mold continues to grow and destroy relationships, families, and dreams. Yet, we say it’s not that big of a deal.
If you want something as simple as happiness, this stuff still needs to be dealt with.
Just like that little bath toy that released all the slimy goo throughout the entire tub, it does the same to our lives.
Life as a Massage Therapist
As a Licensed Massage Therapist for nearly 20 years, I see and touch the bodies that have carried the guilt, pride, trauma, and other negative emotions and pressures I talked about above. It’s not just some little part of our brain that we shush into a corner and hopes to go away, but it oozes into our thoughts, our posture, our muscle memory, and can thus create long-lasting pain and discomfort that when left untreated, causes even more damage.
We need to be regularly cleansed, purified, and renewed for the sake of our health mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, culturally, and relationally. I mean, ALL THE WAYS.
Spending most of my life in the church, it is often taken out of context what it means to live purely. Most interpret this to keep it in your pants and to keep your legs crossed. But what people are really missing here is how deep the need for purity really is.
We need purity to thrive at our best and God wants that for us.
It isn’t just a sexual thing, don’t you see? We are being blinded even more so to think it is. Completely blinded.
Get Rid of Your Toxin
If you want the most for this life and for what God has for you, you need a pure heart and a pure mind to get that crap out of the way. Simple as that. It’s bacteria, mold, and cancer that destroys you from the inside out. And we are fools to think we can ignore it, compartmentalize it, or contain it, because it’s a disease that eats through all the barriers you try to put up.
We really are a breeding ground for such destruction, but even a better breeding ground for faith. It depends on what we choose.
Anyone can act like they have it all together and hide and shush the doubt, fear, lack of belief, trauma, bitterness, unforgiveness, jealousy, anger, lust, greed, idols….. Should I keep listing?
We all have something, just pick one and deal with it. And we each have enough to keep ourselves busy, that there is no need to point something out in another. We each have enough to work on.
So if there is anything toxic within you taking you away from the life you should have, be done with it. Lay it down at the cross, and don’t you dare pick it back up. Instead, be a breeding ground of faith.
Pausing to Pray and Reflect
Not going to lie. I had already published this post and then stopped to pray and ask God to show me where there was any other mold, toxin, or cancer in my life. And it couldn’t have been any louder to hear that my mold is that I care waayyyy to much of what people think. So excuse me while I go work on what holds me back to live the life I know God has for me.
Hope you take some time to pray and reflect, too. It’s good for the soul, and we could use some good souls around the world. Be one of them.
xoxo
bailey
Love this bailey! Thanks for sharing and writing this post. I definitely needed to hear this today
Thank you, Laurel! I have to remind myself and deal with it over and over again. If not, it just weighs us down! xoxo
Bailey,
Amazing writing . So well written but more importantly so much wisdom and truth. Appreciate you being real with your own life.
Denny
Thank you so much Denny. God hit me hard with that revelation as I squirted all the water (and mold!) out of those bath toys. The realization that we do the same things to ourselves, was like, WHOA.
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