Cleaning is something I despise. I long to be someone who finds joy in picking up a mess and restoring a space to its beautiful state. Anyone who has lived with me or come to my room, whether at college or at home, knows that I’m a mess. My clothes are constantly thrown about the room, and I always have at least two loads of laundry that I could do on any given day. My makeup is spaced out around my sink, and there is powder all over the place. The list could go on and on of all the ways my room is consistently a disaster.
This past Friday, I found myself with a completely free day, which is insanely strange for me. In fact, I can only look back on a small handful of days in the past few years where I have had no obligations, responsibilities, or that I haven’t filled my time with friends or experiences. So, I woke up that morning and decided that it was going to be a day of deep cleaning.
I mean deep cleaning in every sense of the word. I woke up with the intention of doing all of my laundry (which was a five load task), straighten up everything around my room, spend time with Jesus reflecting on things in my life I need to clean up, and the list went on and on.
As I was in the middle of folding clothes from what seemed to be a never ending pile of laundry, I couldn’t help but be frustrated by how I much I despise cleaning. I find absolutely no joy in the task, and I let things pile up into huge masses until it isn’t just a mess, but a disaster. However, I still want a clean room!
I then remembered the wise words of a dear friend. A few weeks before, we were talking about this very thing, and she had suggested that I needed to get out of the mindset of having to clean up everything at once. Instead, just spending a few minutes each day to clean up a small portion would eventually end up in a clean room.
Suddenly, I realized how that advice pertains to every area of life. So often we look at a big mess we’ve made of a situation, a relationship, or just our lives in general, and we get overwhelmed by how the small mess quickly turned into a disaster. Then, instead of beginning to work on it, we are in a constant state of being stressed about how messy it’s gotten, and we become too overwhelmed to work on it whatsoever.
One of the most difficult lessons I’ve learned is to give myself grace in the process, and trust in the one thing that remains steady, Jesus. I believe this holds true of the problems we face. I think we need to get out of a mindset that our messes are going to be fixed overnight. Rather, if we would grant ourselves that grace that Jesus died for and tackle our problems a little bit each day while inviting him in, it would do wonders for overcoming the things we face.
The concept of getting out of this “deep cleaning” mindset is something I am constantly working on. My personality tends to lean on a mentality surrounded by the concept of fixing a problem now, but that simply isn’t a reality. So, today I find myself grateful that Jesus doesn’t expect us to be perfect, let alone overnight, and I find myself resting on this scripture as I learn.
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” - 1 Corinthians 12:8-9
I pray that you will see that Christ’s grace is sufficient for you and that his power is shown even through your weakness. Invite him in, you won’t regret it.
With all my love sisters,
xoxo.
Elizabeth Ann
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