On Cleaning

House work is NEVER EVER EVER finished. Ever. There's always one more room, one more project, one more something. Or, as soon as you think you have everything clean, kids come home, you realize you have clothes in the washer, the cat tears apart a tissue that appeared out of nowhere, you use a dish or two or seven...It's never ending, even the small things. Then, you decide to take on a big project: renovate the kitchen, clean your closet, paint the bathroom, fix the plumbing, clean out the fridge, etc. tHEN, there's the things you need to get: groceries, a new couch, a vacuum, a lamp. Always room for improvement. It's rough, but rewarding. But again, it's NEVER finished. Kind of like God's work in us. Ok...now bear with me while I [word for tell a story]

in May of (2012) I moved into a cute little old farm house. At first glance it didn't look too bad. It seemed to need a bit of cleaning, a paint job, and some organization, but it appeared doable...HA!!!!! I was so naive. First of all, it's an old farm house. That in and of itself entails old plumbing, crooked walls, decades old wall paper, funky cielings, and lots of random critters....Second of all, 2 boys lived here before me. Need I say more? Probably not, but since I can't help myself, let me give you a very brief run down: filthy windows. Everything was dusty, dead bugs, mouse poop, slimy nasty God-knows-what, random crap they'd left behind (including hair-infested electric razors...ya, thanks guys...), old mail, nail-clipping infested carpets (umm YUCK!), and a garage filled with beer cans, nasty trash, pizza boxes, a messed up couch, and whatever they had thrown out of their car when they cleaned it out. And all of that was just surface level. I had NOOOOO idea what I was getting myself into. Since moving in I have spent ATLEAST 200 hours cleaning, painting, scrubbing, peeling, washing, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, sweating, all trying to get this place looking good. And DANG. It does look SOOOO much better. But I still have a TON of stuff to do before it's acceptable for me to pass off to any one else. 

I have learned that there are varying levels of cleaning that needs to take place. There are the HUGE projects (knocking down walls, removing doors, ripping up carpets, peeling wall paper, washing walls, painting them, painting trim, and coat #2...or #3...or #4). There are BIG projects (cleaning out fridge, cleaning the stove in and around and under, rearranging furniture). There are SMALL projects (dusting, paint touch ups). Then, there are weekly necessities, like cleaning the bathroom, mopping, and straightening up the bedroom [which often ends up being a BIG project if you're like me:P]). Finally, there are daily nuisances (dishes, laundry, sweeping). As I have been learning about these varying levels of cleaning, and putting them into practice in my own home, God has been teaching me an even larger lesson that is such a beautiful truth. 

Because my Heavenly Father knows that I learn incredibly well through analogies, He gave me a beautiful, paralelled analogy for me between the work He is doing in my soul and the work I am doing on my house. You see, like this house I moved into, my soul had been abused, neglected, and filthy. I had junk that didn't belong, many years of built up dust, random slime that I wasn't able to identify, and God saw that it was time to clean out this dump. And He's done exactly that. He has done a thourough cleaning of my soul and really, my entire being. He has thrown a ton of stuff out, including terrible thoughts, bitterness, anger, rage, selfishness, lust, and many many more. He has scrubbed clean each and every surface. He has painted the inside of my heart new, bright, shining, beautiful colors. He has washed the windows of my eyes so I can see clearly with His heart (yes i DID mean to put that:P). He has moved in a couch of peace, a bed of trust, and end-tables of righteousness. He cleared away cobwebbs of distrust, and killed the spiders with their poison of bitterness. He has completely transformed me. You wouldn't recognize my soul from then to now. Even after just a few months of that, I could barely recognize myself. 

The intensity of the exact likeness between what I've worked on in my house, and what's going on in my soul and life is uncanny and only explainable with God. From lack of motivation to make the changes, to the need to go over certain areas again and again and again, to daily upkeep, and majorly HUGE projects, to moving some things in, and getting other things out, every detail has some paralell meaning for me. I could talk for HOURS about each detail, each comparison, each fragment that God has so perfectly lined up. However, my fingers would fall off, and my computer burst into flames because of how much there is, and how fast I would have to be typing to finish it before I die!--ok, maybe that's an exaggeration...but I digress.  So, to honor your time and my own, I shall share with you only the overall message that God is showing me: no matter how far we come with Him, no matter how good we look on the inside, or the outside, there is always something more we can learn, accomplish, bring in, change, move out, etc. He will tear down walls, rip up carpets, and replace fixtures you thought were adequate--but our God is not a God of 'adequacy.' He is a God of PERFECTION.  But, that is not a bad thing. It is an incredibly beautiful thing, you know why? Because that means God will ALWAYS have something more for us. Something more beautiful to show us, or bestow upon us. There will be something greater He will call us to. He will take something old and replace it with something new and better. Something my pastor has said is that "God is in the business of transformation." And this God of the Universe, your Creator, has the heart of Love toward you that desires nothing less than to turn you into a PALACE. 

Transformation is a process, and thank God we never arrive till we die, because that means we are never done growing, never done getting better, and NEVER EVER without God with us, making us all we can be. And though there are days, moments, sometimes endless months of painful renovation, in the end, I believe we will look back and not wish to trade a second of it...

"God loves you exactly where you are, but He loves you too much to let you stay there."