My home has been invaded…twice. And while neither invasion was life threatening, both seemed quite disturbing and – to my mind at least – demanded immediate action.

The first intruder was a small, green lizard. He’d somehow made his way inside and had no doubt explored quite a bit of my home’s square footage before I saw him on my writing desk behind my pencil cup. While I was at my desk. Writing. Quite near said cup of pencils.

In many respects I consider myself a brave woman. I’ve faced CEO’s and a television camera or two; jumped from a perfectly good plane and spoken before plenty of people smarter than me. But none of that made my heart pound like my reptilian intruder. Since there was no one else to call, I stalked him myself – dreading the moment when I’d have to reach out my hand and pinch his tiny tail between my thumb and forefinger for a hasty eviction.

All went according to plan until the piece of his tail I grasped came off in my hand, not once but twice! This was enough to send me to bed for a week – but there was no doubt that “stumpy” and I were going to duel to the death if need be…because I wasn’t about to live with him. I got him out. I had to.

The second intrusion happened when I arrived home to find a man at my front door. A calendar centerfold-man, quite naked, pinned to my door with the clip I use for outgoing mail. It seems my upstairs neighbor was having a party and Mr. Centerfold was the official greeter downstairs. But because my neighbor and I share the front door that faces the street, it seemed that we were sharing him, too. I unclipped him from the door, closed the calendar and dropped him quietly on the stairs. A few minutes later a guest from upstairs came down and apologized.

“I just don’t want that on my front door,” I said. And I didn’t. I didn’t like the message he sent about the sort of person who lived inside.

I’ve thought about both of my intruders for several days now, and what I’ve decided is this: I wish I were as diligent about what I let invade my heart as I am about what I refuse to let invade my home. I wish it was as quickly clear to me that envy and unforgiveness and impure thoughts had to go. That meanness was unwelcome and pettiness could not stay. And I’m praying that today – my internal sentry will be better tuned, and its warning sound will not go unheeded for long.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence…first clean the inside of the cup and the dish, so that outside it may become clean also. That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.” (Matthew 23:25-26; Mark 7:20, NASB)

© Leigh McLeroy 2004