Cleaning up...boy's room

I told a story a few weeks ago in a group of women. I know for sure that they will never think of me the same.  I let the cat out of the bag that sometimes I do not sort the silverware.  When my kids were little, I began a bad habit.  I started opening up the silverware drawer and just dumping all of the clean utensils in the drawer and closing it. 

One of the ladies in the group asked me if I knew that trays were made for that so that everything had its place.  I told her that I had two trays in the drawer, but sometimes I just ignored them to save time.  The silverware was clean and that was all that mattered to me! 

My laid back, lazy, crazy, whatever you want to call it approach of out of sight out of mind in my home came from cancer.  Before I was sick years ago, I was a slave to my house.  I could never just sit down or go outside and play.  I lived with a baby on one hip and a Swifter sweeper in one hand.  I discovered the Roomba floor robot vacuum and wore it out on my concrete floors because everything had to be clean. 

I still clean on my day off, but I clean knowing that it is going to be messed up again by that night.  Really, I just sanitize!  When I finally got well after 8 months of chemo and radiation, I decided that I would not be controlled by housework, but that I would play with my kids.  It is hard for me to admit that, nearly as hard as what I admitted about my silverware drawer, but it took cancer for me to not sweat the small stuff.

I have also mastered the art of closing my kid’s doors to their rooms.  I let them manage their mess.  Last Sunday night after a nice meal at Sam’s, my boys decided they wanted to clean their room.  I walked by checked out their work.  One of them was working on laundry.  (Big job because they have over a hundred pairs of socks I think.)  The other one was working through a few corners that needed attention.  When I made my way back by in only a few minutes, their room was sparkling clean!  I was super impressed and told them so. 

The next morning when I woke them up, I commented again that they must love waking up in such a tidy room.  Much to my surprise, Tuesday morning I made a laundry delivery to their room when they were at school, and could not believe that their room was already a wreck, and it had only been two days.  They had cleaned their room and not maintained it…not at all!  I closed the door and did not touch a thing.  I laughed and thought that their room was a picture of life. 

We can ask the Lord to clean us up and He will.  He will forgive us and wipe all of our sins away; however, it is not a one-time clean up (DUH, just like with the room.)  There is a life-long process of sanctification, forgiveness, and going back to Jesus Christ DAILY.  We can’t get all cleaned up on Sunday and then wait until the next week to do it again.  Well, we can if we want to live a miserable life weighed down in our own sin.  Romans 6:23 says “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”I will take that free gift everyday of my life.