Hoarding

Recently I was watching the show Hoarders … and having nightmares! Has anyone ever seen that show? These people hold on to stuff, stuff and more stuff. They often have no living area and little paths to get from room to room (to put it mildly).

While watching the show it was clear that the “stuff” was filling some kind of hole in the person. It made me feel really sad for them -- thinking about how those people were so troubled and that I was so disturbed about the situation that they were in.

Then the Holy Spirit must have hit me upside the head and said something like “Hello Michelle! Wake up! You do the same thing!”

Now don’t be afraid to come over my house; I am not a hoarder. My “stuff” is just packaged differently. It made me think about how we all try to fill our God-shaped hole. Do we fill it with food, TV, work, service or even relationships? Non-Christians also have this God-shaped hole that they are desperately trying to fill.

It reminds me to the chorus of a song by the group Plum:

There’s a God-shaped hole in all of us
And the restless soul is searching
There’s a God-shaped hole in all of us
And it’s a void only HE can fill

I know I am constantly looking at my life and trying to identify the “stuff” that I try to fill this hole with. But the way to fill the God-shaped hole really is easy -- fill it with God! This is my prayer for all of us ladies: to be able to first identify the “stuff” and then to replace it with the only hole satisfier -- God!

Michelle Heriford