For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
Well, I was doing pretty good there for a couple of weeks with my Thankful Posts, and I have to say that sitting down at the end of the day and thinking about what I was thankful for, really helped put things into perspective for me. But then, I allowed the struggles of life to consume me and I stopped being thankful for anything. I crawled into my little black hole and threw myself a pity party, table for 1. I hid from the world and thought I was hiding from God, but we all know that isn't possible. (Funny what we can convince ourselves of, isn't it?)
Something happened last Tuesday though. A friend of mine was in the area and really needed to use a bathroom so she called to see if she could come and use mine. I of course let her in and immediately apologized for the messiness of my house. You know what she said to me? "Yeah it is!" For the first time that I can think of someone was bluntly honest with me about the way my house looked. Normally people say things like "Oh you should see my house" or "Don't worry about it, it's no big deal." I know those people meant well each and every time they said it. Even though in their heads they were probably really shocked by how messy my house is. People are just trying to be nice, but sometimes we just need to hear the BLUNT honest truth.
Before leaving my friend asked me what was all the stuff that was laying around. I came up with some good excuses for some of it but in reality they were just that, EXCUSES. After she left I felt embarrassed. But not for the reason that most people would think. I wasn't embarrassed because my friend saw my house messy, I was embarrassed because I made excuses for my house being messy. All of the sudden my heart was so convicted about my lack of gratitude for the blessings that God has given me. See, I used to tell myself that I didn't really need to keep my house clean because it wasn't really my home. I mean, yes, we (meaning us and the bank) own it, but we never planned on being in it very long. It was just a stepping stone to a bigger and better place. So I didn't really ever consider it my HOME. I did not take pride in how it looked. I only cleaned when it got really messy or if someone I wanted to impress was coming over. In fact, I hated my house.
5 years later on Tuesday June 30th 2009 I came to the realization that God was never going to bless me with anything more, if I did not appreciate and take care of what I currently had. So that afternoon I just started cleaning. I cleaned and reorganized and threw out a bunch of stuff. It felt so good. The next morning I woke up and did it again. By the end of the day the house looked great. I am not finished reorganizing, and I will never be finished cleaning because it's an ongoing process. I am not going to lie, I still hate cleaning, but I keep asking God to develop in me, a love for it. Yeah that's right, eventually I want to be able to say that I LOVE cleaning. I see cleaning now as a form of worship, to a God that has blessed me with so much, from me who deserves none of it.
Comments (1)
Amen. All of life is worship - even the mundane tasks of cleaning - as monotonous as it is! Happy cleaning!