It’s two in the morning, and I’ve spent the entire day–well, my entire day–cleaning. Some of my friends recently moved out-of-state, so I’m getting their house ready for their realtor to put on the market. And whereas it’s not hard work, it is long work, since I’m scrubbing the walls, washing the baseboards, and making sure every little nook and cranny is spic-and-span. This afternoon and evening I worked for eight hours and got three rooms–including the kitchen–finished. So that’s something.

Having spent a few weeks helping these same friends pack for their move, it really is something, walking around in their empty house. I mean, there was SO MUCH stuff before. You know how it is–possessions are magnetic–and since my friends were in the same place for nearly three decades, it all just accumulated. But now there’s not a lick of furniture, not a picture on the walls. There’s just a dust bunny here and there, a bottle of ketchup in the refrigerator, and box of lightbulbs for whoever ends up buying the house.

Whoever ends up buying the house–I thought about this person or persons while cleaning today. My friends’ realtor came over, and she talked about what buyers like, what they don’t like. “Families with young children might have a problem with the steep stairs,” she said. Anyway, I’m still wondering–who will end up there? Who will move into that empty (and soon-to-be-clean) house, fill it with their furniture and knickknacks, and make it their new home?

Whom am I helping to get it ready for?

For a few weeks I’ve had it in my mind to pack up a bunch of paperback books that have been on the shelves that run around the top of my room and store them in my sister’s old closet, since the books belong to Mom and Dad and everything else on display in the room belongs to me. Anyway, my friends left some empty boxes at their house, so I used those when I got home from cleaning tonight to pack up the books and tote them down the hallway out of my sight and out of my mind. Then I came back in my room and cleaned the shelves, an activity that ended up being a trip down memory lane, since I found two small nails and a glob of sticky-tack placed just above one of the shelves, remnants I’m sure of pictures or action figures I had displayed when I was much younger.

Once I got the shelves clean, my first instinct was to fill them. After all, nature abhors a vacuum, and so do I. However, when I started looking for things to put on the shelves, I realized first that I don’t really own anything and second that the three books I do have that need a place to go would look stupid up there surrounded by twenty feet of emptiness. So for now the shelves remain barren. And just like I wonder who will move into the house I’m cleaning, I wonder WHAT will move onto my shelves.

There’s a phrase in the Bible I’ve been thinking about for the last week–poor in spirit. You know, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” As I understand it, this phrase isn’t about money or a person’s external life but rather about a person’s internal one, the idea being that before you can be filled with new ideas, perceptions, or values, you first have to make yourself empty (or poor) by getting rid of whatever ideas, perceptions, or values currently fill you up. Jesus communicated this same idea when he said that in order to obtain salvation, you must first become like a child (who has no preconceived notions).

Anyway, this is what my life has felt like the last two years–the emptying–both with respect to my material possessions and to my immaterial ones. Nothing looks like what I thought it would on the outside. Nothing feels like it used to on the inside. Honestly, the results-oriented part of me is often embarrassed by everything that’s taken place during this period; so many days I feel like an empty shelf–nothing to show. And yet just like the house I’m cleaning or the shelves that run atop my room, I know it’s just a matter of time before I too am filled with whatever will come next. And until then, what a beautiful thing to have some extra room, a space that’s not full yet, a space that’s ripe with possibility.