The #trashtag challenge originally appeared in 2015. It has since increased in popularity in March 2019 following viral before-and-after photographs posted via social media. The challenge involves participants, based primarily in the United States, volunteering to collect trash at an outdoor location in their local communities.
So why should we care? There should be no doubt in our minds that there is a global crisis relating to trash polluting our ecosystem. All it takes is one glance to see a piece of misplaced waste. Fixing this problem is a responsibility we should all share in; we all ought to be doing our bit in ensuring our children inherit a cleaner planet. Taking action and mobilizing large or small-scale plastic clean-up campaigns is a great step in the right direction. Love it!
But does #trashtag deal with the root or cause issue? How did the trash get everywhere? It was us as humans. Every minute of every day, we create trash. When we throw out cigarette butts through the window – we are adding to the problem. When we drop the sweet wrapper on the ground instead of waiting to find a bin – trash is created.
All this, and so much more accumulates and causes more damage than we could ever imagine to our ecosystem. If left unremedied, pollution can have dire implications for the safety of our planet. We might dispose of it correctly, or not, but the repeated cycle of trash continues unless interrupted. Until we deal with the root cause, we will always have an issue with trash being around us. A clean-up today will leave room for new trash to accumulate tomorrow.
The same can be said for the trash in our own lives. The tricky thing about the hurt we carry in us is that it is, often times, more visible to those around us than ourselves. Our actions can very easily show the most broken parts of ourselves; the ones we would much rather have left hidden. Until we deal with the root of the pain, the smell of trash in our lives will always be there.
Thankfully, we have the ultimate purifier in, our Lord, Jesus Christ. When Jesus enters your life, he restores everything that was broken and renews you from the inside out. No pain or situation is too bad for him not to turn around and bring joy back into it.
If you are carrying a deep pain that you don’t know how to heal alone, please connect with us by responding to the link below. It is Jesus’s intention that we all bear one another’s burdens and lead each other to wholeness. Let His perfect love help you as you move through life into a place of perfect peace and ultimate cleanness.