Read
…do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7
Reflect
You may have seen the Tom Hanks movie, “The Money Pit,” but I lived in an actual money pit. I expected my first house to be a labor of love, something that my wife and I could nurture and develop into something special. Instead, it seemed like every month we found something wrong with the house. First, there was a lack of support under the back porch. Then it was countertops that flaked up latex paint. Then there was another lack of support under the center of the foundation. But some of the worst surprises were things that stayed hidden for years.
In the last couple of years that we owned the home, we wanted to replace the carpet with laminate flooring, so we hired a contractor to do the job. He found that the subfloor wasn’t level enough for the new flooring, so we had to replace that, too. And that’s when we found the big, hidden problem. The man who sold us the home had cut the house in half and moved it. That part we knew. But what we didn’t know is that his crew hadn’t sealed the cut underneath the house. That left a gap a few inches wide – big enough for every rodent in our zip code to live under our living room floor at some point. When they removed the subfloor there was an ungodly amount of rodent nests and waste. It was all the workers could do to keep it together while they cleaned out the mess.
That’s bad enough, but it isn’t close to as bad as our biggest discovery. One day I noticed that the north end of the home was raised about a half inch above the foundation. We thought that the house was settling, but it was worse than that. We hired a contractor to put “helical piers” under that side of the house. In essence, they’re long, steel supports that anchor into the bedrock and hold the home firmly in place. To do that, you have to dig down until you find that bedrock – and that’s where we made the terrible discovery.
Our seller was a foundation contractor, so he should have known better than to do this, but when his crew cleared the land for the house, they buried everything on the land. So instead of placing the home on solid ground, they placed it on a “bury pit” filled with all manner of refuse that would one day decompose and sink, carrying the house with it. When the pit was excavated by our contractor, he found two huge trees and all sorts of trash – including a rusted-out old car. The seller and his crew may have hidden the trash from sight, but it wasn’t truly gone, and one day it was bound to reveal itself.
When it comes to hiding problems, people are often a lot like my old house. You might think that burying things and pushing them down is the best way to handle your problems, strife and stress, but nothing is ever secret from God. He knows what’s going on, and He desires that we confess our cares to Him instead of worrying about them and stuffing them down so that no one can see them. I lived in that house for more than a decade before the bury pit began to collapse, and we were fortunate to be able to fix the problem before the house sank too far. Some people don’t resolve their hidden problems until they erupt in a cascade of tears or an inferno of anger. Neither of those responses honors the Lord, who commands that we not worry but instead place everything in our lives within His care.
As we approach the holiday season most people will likely deal with some level of frustration, anger or sadness. If that’s you, please don’t hesitate to place these cares before the Lord – and leave them there. Whatever you’re dealing with today, God is big enough to handle it and to replace your worries with His grace, love and peace.
Reflection copyright © 2025 Doug DeBolt.
