Are you a shag or berber?

I think that there are two basic kinds of people. There are the people that walk on the carpets in their homes, and those that don’t. The other day, I walked into my friend’s house to see her new baby, and almost forgot to take off my shoes. She has lived in her house for a few years, and her carpet is immaculate! That wouldn’t necessarily be remarkable, except that she has four children. One reason her carpet is so nice, is because she doesn’t walk on it with shoes. They always take their shoes off before coming inside.

I think relationships are like carpet. They start out all nice and squeaky clean smelling of new chemicals, and you’re pretty careful for a while not to soil anything. Then, one day you can become careless and spill something, or drag in the garbage from the garden, and bam! There’s a stain. Oh, sure, you can use spot remover, but that doesn’t always get the stain out. Sometimes people have to live with that stain for a long time.

Or have it steam cleaned. God is the steam cleaner, and his prices can’t be beat!!

So, I have to ask myself. Have I walked on the carpets of people’s hearts? Have I forgotten to take off my shoes? Have I dragged my past baggage into new relationships and left a messy environment behind me? Too many times the answer is, ”yes”, especially those that I love the most, like my husband.

What about my children’s hearts? Sometimes in haste it can be easy to forget that their hearts are still like clean carpets that have been unblemished by age, spills or wear and tear. I need the Lord to remind me to take off my shoes and tread lightly around those that I love. I need to leave the mud and the slime outside.

So, how do we “take our shoes off”?, you ask. Well, I think it’s by being intentional about it. So many hurtful actions and words can slip out when we are distracted by ourselves. I like to use this self test at the end of the day to remind myself what went wrong, and what went right.

Are my words loving, encouraging and uplifting? (Eph. 4:29) trustworthy and self controlled (Proverbs 11:13), pure (Eph. 5:4), peaceful (Proverbs 17:1), the words God wants me to speak (1Peter 4:11) and a reflection of God’s righteousness (Psalms 17:3b).

Not that I have arrived by any sense of the word, but again, this is not about being perfect, it’s about being intentional with our words and actions. It’s about taking the time to think about someone else, other than ourselves. I have said many times that the root of all sin is selfishness. So, tomorrow, try to be intentional with your husband, children, or whomever you come into contact, and keep their carpet clean.

Taking off my shoes,
Brandie