This weekend, I cleaned out two jam-packed closets, all of my bathroom drawers and cabinets, and my pantry. From them, I took out four big trash bags of garbage, and four more bags and a box for charity.

It’s so amazing to me how much stuff I let pile up. More amazing, though, is what I found beneath all the junk. There were things that had gone missing months (years?) ago. Yes, things that were actually good, with actual value, were hidden beneath stuff that had no business being in those storage spaces.

Take my bathroom drawers, for instance. Underneath almost empty bottles of foundation, and hair clips with teeth missing, sat a my grandmother’s copper brooch. I had looked all over for it around Christmas, wanting to pin it to a scarf, and was heartbroken when I couldn’t find it. It must’ve gotten knocked off my counter into that abyss of a drawer, and because it was such a mess, I never noticed.

When we let a bunch of trash build up in our lives, a lot of important things can get pushed into obscurity. Valuable parts of us get buried under things that don’t matter at all, seemingly lost. Perhaps it’s time to clean out and see what’s hiding underneath. There might just be a part of you that’s been missing, a shimmering jewel of a thing that needs to be brought out to shine.

No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a washtub or shoves it under the bed. No, you set it up on a lamp stand so those who enter the room can see their way. We’re not keeping secrets; we’re telling them. We’re not hiding things; we’re bringing everything out into the open.  ~ Luke 8:16-17 MSG