Rats terrify me. Especially the rats that took over my home. I’m not being deep or poetic. I’m being literal. I closed on my home on February 29, 2016. I was excited, but honestly, I was mostly thrilled that the fun surprises of buying a home were over. Such a fool.
My home was built from the ground up in 2008. So, it’s fairly new. Unfortunately, the previous owners had different ideas of what taking care of a home means. The front door had an indentation from an ax. Mold abounded in the vanity of the master bathroom because of a leak under the sink. The carpet was all kinds of gross and provided an interesting aroma. Clearly, they weren’t getting any rest in the master bedroom with that awful deep orange color on the walls. (Is that why they tried to chop their way out of the front door???)
But I was okay with ALL of that, because I had a vision. A grand idea of what my little fixer upper home in the hood would one day be. My uncles, brother, and a couple of my cousins came to rip out all of the old carpet. They got it done quickly. I was impressed. I had contractors coming in and out to give me estimates of what a total overhaul would cost. I told them all about my grand vision. Well, when those estimates came in, I had to pump the brakes. My vision and my money were not in agreement.
I was willing to wait and save my money so that I could have the remodeled home of my dreams. I knew my mom would not have an issue with me staying with her while I got my funds together to make my house a home. That plan worked fine until it didn’t. I got mad, angry, upset, frustrated, enraged, if you will, with my mom and brother. So, I moved into the unfinished house that I was paying the mortgage on.
My master plan was to just never go into my mold infested master bathroom. I kept the door to that bathroom shut. As well as the door to the master bedroom shut. I bought a filter fan and kept it running behind those closed doors to keep me from dying of mold poisoning. And if I died from mold exposure, it was their fault!
My plan worked until the day a rat the size of a 3-pound kitten walked into my living room. I literally jumped over the back of my couch and ran outside leaving my front door wide open. I called my brother as I stood in my front yard wearing my night gown with the holes in it. I told him that I didn’t care what he was doing but he needed to come NOW! My mom was next on my call list. They both came.
See while I had that room closed off, a situation was spinning out of control. Rats were climbing up through the toilet from an open sewer line in my backyard. The water was cut off to the toilet. It was a wide-open freeway for vermin. Rats had been living WITH me inside that house for who knows how long before they decided to make their presence known.
What’s been living inside those closed off places of your heart? Eventually all those things will make their presence known. They will come out when you least expect it. It won’t be pretty. As a matter of fact, it may scare you so badly that you jump outside of yourself. You’ll be like me. Exposed in your nightgown with the holes in it. And not caring. Because dealing with what’s inside of you is scarier than being exposed to the world.
The rats in my home are gone now. Their appearance made me pray for money and God answered. The construction took a full calendar year. Way longer than I anticipated. There were so many set-backs and decisions to be made along the way. But it was worth it in the end.
Let God remove all the vermin that are invading your heart. Construction will take a while. But you’re in the hands of a master carpenter. #wepreach
