It started when she was cleaning out a cupboard. Funny how an entire life can be changed by one simple chore. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This is her story, after all, not mine. I want her to tell it, but she won’t. So, I reluctantly step in as her storyteller because she asked me to.

We all have two kinds of stories: the ones we might tell and the ones we’ll never tell. Her story falls under the second category. Enough explanation. If she was here, she’d say, “Just get on with it. If it needs to be done, then do it until it’s done and not one minute longer or one minute shorter.”

It started when she was cleaning out a cupboard. She took everything out and lined it up on the countertop. She tossed the useless or outdated. She scrubbed the shelves. But no matter how hard she scrubbed, they would not come clean. She tried harder and harder until her fingers were raw. Then it hit her. “If I can’t clean a shelf, how will I ever clean up my own life?”

That thought evoked a mental life review, like what sometimes happens to people in near-death situations. She cried. She shook her head. She realized a terrible truth as her face turned unbleached-flour-white and her hands turned cadaver-clammy.

“I’ve broken every single one of the Ten Commandments. Every single one.” Then in what was barely a raw whisper, “More than once.”

She looked at the shelf. “So unclean. Just like me. Like the lepers in the Bible.”

That’s when she heard it. A whisper. Not an ordinary whisper, but a hissing, snake-like sound resonating through her very being. Giving her cold chills. Her path became crystal clear as she entered a very dark world. Standing up, she had a mission. Clean the cupboard first so that no one would see her dirt, and then end her life. A calmness, a coldness, overtook her. Thinking about her mistakes, she could no longer repress the memories. She could no longer live with the guilt.

She spent many years trying to hold onto her youth, one bleached strand of hair at a time. One forced giggle at a time. One more drink at a time. One more time going home with someone she didn’t know. One more promise in the starkness of morning’s harsh light that she would never do this again. But she did … when she couldn’t face the loneliness another second. When she had nothing to fill the gaping hole in her heart. When she saw another look of disgust, of judgment. Of dismissal, as if she held no worth. Like garbage. Not even recycled, just discarded. An old joke that long ago lost its punch line.

“Just get on with it. If it needs to be done, then do it until it’s done and not one minute longer or one minute shorter.”

She smiled. It felt good to have a plan. To make a conscious decision. To have control. But she didn’t have any control at all, not really. As she thought about the how and the where and the when, the what walked into her life and got her attention. The beautiful crystal angel mobile hanging above her kitchen table, a gift from her Sunday school teacher of long ago, fell onto the table and shattered into pieces.

As Miss Alva, her Sunday school teacher, used to say, “If you have a problem, stop whatever you’re doing and pray about it. Just get on with it. If it needs to be done, then do it until it’s done and not one minute longer or one minute shorter.”

She laughed. Miss Alva, who had a wild beehive hairdo, loved her. Unconditionally. She looked down at her kitchen angel, in broken pieces on the table, noticing for the first time that they fell into the perfect shape of a cross.

And she remembered the day that Miss Alva led her in the sinner’s prayer. She asked for forgiveness of her sins and asked Jesus to live in her heart. And as she remembered, her heart was no longer empty. Her heart was no longer shattered. Her life was no longer meaningless. Her life was no longer hers as she rededicated herself to serve her Lord.

“I’m doing it now, Lord. I’m getting on with it because it needs to be done. I need you right now. Not one minute longer or one minute shorter.”

And that’s how her new story started as she cleaned out a cupboard and ended up with Jesus cleaning out her heart.