The swimming pool in our backyard has been a delight this year. We have enjoyed afternoon and morning swims, workouts, and parties with friends and their families. A pool is a wonderful thing.

But a pool is also a pain!

Just consider what a swimming pool is: a huge container of water kept 100% of the time outside, next to trees and grass and available to critters. (Sad, but I have grown to hate frogs.) To be safe for swimmers and pleasing to the eye, a pool requires a great deal of effort, removing “stuff” and balancing chemicals. It isn’t easy.

So I was frustrated beyond imagination when the sweet woman at the pool store tested a sample of water from our pool and reported “your pool is in perfect balance. Whatever you are doing is working.” Yes the report was fabulous but the pool was NOT – the pool was green.

I have no clear understanding of why pools turn green. (Please do not send a long explanation to me providing every possible reason for “green” water. You see – I don’t really care. Ok, that could be part of my problem!) My theory is that if I add chemicals and do some work, the pool should stay clean. But it does not always do what I expect it to do!

So, as the lady smiled, my pool’s great report in her hand, I said the words that were hard to say: “I think I need to drop it.” Ahhh.,,she reached for a bottle of “drop out” and a set of instructions and sent me in my way (via the checkout counter).

Upon returning home, I studied that page of instructions. Dropping a pool is not an easy task (at least for me). The first step was to clean the filter. Then I dissolved chlorine in a bucket of water and poured the concoction into the pool as directed. Next we waited for three hours. Then the mystical liquid of dropout was added to the pool, the pump was operated for two hours and then was shut down. The water became still and we waited.

About 18 hours later the hard work began. The chemicals had done their job. The bottom of the pool was covered with what looked like a carpet of very fine, green dust. You don’t want that stuff going through a filter, so you have to vacuum out the dust out of the pool.

Vacuuming the green dust means that you must remove water that holds the dust. And as you vacuum the “dust” moves and becomes suspended in water again. So you must vacuum, continually adding more water into the pool, and taking breaks to let the “dust” settle and the water accumulate.

Eventually, the water was crystal clear again.

By now, if you are a pool owner, you know my pain. And if you have never cared for a pool, you are thinking “And, your point is, Jill??”

There are times in my life when I realize that I have allowed something to enter and to remain in my life that should have been removed as soon as I noticed it. For me, this has too often been in the form of a personal habit or a way of thinking. It is tiny and barely noticeable, really nothing compared to the big picture. But it doesn’t belong. It isn’t helpful nor healthy. And that little thing grows.

Like our green pool water, that tiny habit grows to the point that it can obscure my vision, remove beauty, destroy joy. It isn’t what I planned and all of the self-help, friend-suggested treatments don’t work.

It’s time to drop it.

That sounds so easy, but it can take time, it will definitely require change and replacement of old things with new. But with the guidance of the One who made me, who created me in His image, the Lord Who gave Himself for me, the work can be done.

So now we are pure again, the thing is gone. But we live in a secular world and our minds and hearts are open to things we haven’t planned for. Shoot, we sit in the middle of it, making millions of decisions every day with our hearts and minds vulnerable and tender. We notice and avoid the big “no no’s” but little stuff can get in. You know what I mean, that thing that “isn’t that bad.”

Years ago I read a story that started fine but had a horrific ending. It bothered me for so long. My mind raced through scenarios of “what would I do” if that had been in my life or in the life of someone I loved. It worried me. I was terrified when my mind went to that story.

Then, one day, I realized that I was the one keeping the story alive. It was time to drop it. And I did but it wasn’t easy. So many times, I would start to rehearse that story in my mind and I had to intentionally shut it down. Eventually, my mind and heart developed new paths and I was able to put the story into the back of my memories. It no longer clouded my vision.

Remind you of anything in your life? Maybe it is time to ask the Lord what we should do about that memory, that habit, that hurt, that way of thinking. He may direct us to seek out a wise counselor. He may direct us to new paths. The work will be hard. But, in the end, removing that thing from our life will uncloud our vision, make us ready to serve and refresh our spirit.

It’s time to drop it.

Love,

Jill (just one of God’s kids)

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing, and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2