The Wardrobe Cleanout on Maple Street

Last spring, Maria Gutierrez finally tackled the hall closet in her Chicago bungalow. For years she had shoved old coats, stained shirts, and shoes that no longer fit behind the door, cramming new clothes on top. The closet barely closed. When she pulled everything out, she found a jacket from a job she hated, a dress from a relationship that nearly destroyed her, and a hoodie she wore through the loneliest season of her life. Each piece carried weight far beyond fabric and thread.

Maria did not just reorganize. She filled three garbage bags and hauled them to the curb. Then she stood in front of the empty closet and began hanging what actually belonged — clothes that fit the woman she had become, not the woman she used to be.

Paul tells the Colossians to do exactly this with their souls. Strip off the old garments — the rage, the malice, the lying, the greed that cling like moth-eaten wool. These are not minor accessories. They are the identity of a former life. But Paul does not leave us standing before an empty closet. He says we have already been clothed with a new self, one being renewed in the image of the Creator, where every wall between people crumbles because Christ is all, and is in all.

The old wardrobe has to go to the curb. The new one is already waiting on the hangers.