WHAT DID YOU LEAVE BEHIND?

So He bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them. Luke 4:39

The mattress was hanging off the bed, the sheets and comforter were mostly pulled off, the pillows were scattered all over the guest room; towels and washcloths were strewn all over the bathroom. I saw the toe of a shoe barely visible under the bed that had missed detection from those who had departed. I stopped to take in the scene and contemplate the difference between the room I had just cleaned and this one. In that room everything was in order as though no one had even spent the night or showered. The bed was as I had left it, sheets pulled up tight, the bedspread smoothed, without wrinkles; not even a hair on the sink to show its use. How, I wondered, could these two identical rooms be so different? What had taken place in each over the last 48 hours? I straightened and scrubbed the room, made the beds, and put out new towels and washcloths, but my mind was more on people and their lives than on the surfaces I was cleaning. Our lives, like these rooms, can be in chaos or at peace; things going smoothly or out of control. We can be in such a hurry that the whirlwind we leave behind might be like the room that was left in disarray. God can calm the storm in Galilee and He is able to calm the storms of our lives just as the room that was left clean and orderly, but we must call Him in the storm and He can bring peace. However, what really seemed to stay in my thoughts the longest was reflecting on what we leave behind in our lives. Do we stop, turn around, and look before we leave a room to check on what we are leaving behind us for whomever may be there next? Not just the physical things we might leave, but what actions and words have we left behind? How have I influenced people? So I ask, what have you left behind today?

By: Bonnie Garland

MPA Faculty