mice in our couches

taken from stuff christians like... so good and so true.


“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.