Dump It at the Dump!

Every week (in an effort to save a little dough) our family has chosen to take our trash, recycling and whatever else to the landfill (or the dump!) ourselves instead of having the garbage guys pick it up.

At first it was mainly a trip for my hubby and our girl. SO funny how she’d always talking about “Dump Day” on Fridays. She actually looked forward to the, sometimes smelly, little trip!

Recently my husband has worked more than usual and so our family time on Saturdays is pretty important to all of us. We try to be together and do as much together as we possibly can. They usually beg me to go along and sometimes I find other reasons to stay home and out of the SUV with the smelly trash in tow.

I guess it was about two Saturdays ago now they asked me to go and I decided to humor them. I got in the car and as we were riding down the road the following conversation started.

Hubby- “Ok, so remember, as we ride to the dump I want you to think about which attitude or sin you’d like to leave behind. Is there something that you feel you need to leave at the dump along with the trash?”

Caroline-“Actually, yeah. Remember when I got so mad because I couldn’t get the Wii to work and I cried and got sent to my room? Well, I think I need to leave that at the dump.”

Hubby-“Ok, well, I think I need to leave an attitude at the dump, too. Last week I felt bad about something that really was a blessing. I need to stop looking at myself and start looking at the blessings that I DO have. “

And then they asked…

“Ok mama! What about you!? Is there something you need to leave at the dump?”

OH. MY. WORD-ah!!!!!!!

First of all… how about I am not prepared to spill my guts in front of my family about my terrible attitude, my lack of trust in the Lord or my feelings of lack of purpose some days!?!? We were going to the DUMP for the love of garbage!

Second… REALLY!?!? You made going to the dump some sort of spiritual experience!?!

After a long pause I decided to share that even though I know that God has a plan for me to not work full time right now so that I can be home for our family, it is still hard sometimes for me to not always feel that I have a real purpose. I know that is a lie from the enemy and so I need to leave that… at the dump!

Once I said it my husband started praying in the car for all of us. He asked the Lord to take each one of our smelly sins and forgive us so that we can come away from the dump knowing that we are clean and forgiven.

We got to the landfill and it’s actually like a recycling center. It’s very organized and clean (for a dump) and it’s not what we’d normally picture…

but getting out of the car to help unload made me have a greater understanding.

There was a smell. It was hot. People working there wore masks and they were so hot standing out there helping people unload their smelly, yucky trash. I was ready to get the junk out of our car and into those bins so that we could high tail it out of that place!

Suddenly it made a lot of sense to me. My husband wanted to paint such a clear picture for our daughter. Our sin is so gross. It is a stench in God’s nostrils. He can’t tolerate sin in His perfect and Holy presence and He suffered and died a terrible death so that we might have that terrible funk taken away from us, too.

Once we left the dump our Caroline said, “Ahhh… doesn’t the car smell better? We got rid of all of that trash!”

“Yes, and our hearts are cleaner, too!” said my husband. “Don’t you love going to the dump? We leave a lot more than trash there, don’t we?”