why I stopped cleaning...

           So I am a self admitted cleanaholic. I get this great joy out of scrubbing and cleaning...I think it is because it brings me immediate results. As a parent, I wait around alot...wait on kids to get out of lessons, wait on husbands to come home, wait on time to go by, wait on doctors to call back, wait, wait, wait...and when I start cleaning...ahhh....no waiting. Just results. And I will say that when we started fostering, my love of cleaning went to an all new level! The more stressed I was, the more I cleaned...and awhile back God brought my cleaning to my heart and convicted me of it. Yes...I did just say that God convicted me of cleaning! This is why...
           I would obsess over having a clean house instead of noticing that my children were struggling..I would get frustrated and upset because things weren't "just right" and I would spend time and energy on ALWAYS cleaning and God spoke to my heart about it. Now, let me just say that there is nothing wrong with a clean house and I do still believe that we should take good care of what God has given us...but sometimes we just need to let it go.
          Through fostering I learned that there are far more important things to do all day...like hugging, or rocking, or listening to the heart of a child as they speak. It became about spending TIME on my children and not as much about the condition of my home. I was afraid that if I didn't have the perfect house, I would be somehow judged by that and the world would determine that I was a bad mom or wife because I had dishes in my sink! It was an expectation that I was teaching my children as well. So God began to work on me and change the desire of my heart...it started becoming more about turning up the music and dancing, grabbing a lunch and having an impromptu picnic outside in the backyard, or grabbing a hairbrush and trying new hairstyles on each other! It became about TIME. God revealed to my heart that time was slipping away and I only had so much time before my girls would be gone on their own adventures of life and so I am learning to let it go. Let the laundry go, let the dishes go or leave the dust on the furniture...because it will always be there...but my children won't. I learned to put down the broom and scoop up my daughter and dance with her. I learned to set down the dish rag and sit down with my teenage daughters and talk...and listen. I learned to walk away from the laundry room and pick up a craft instead to do together as a family. Cleaning has it's place, don't get me wrong....but we can become so focused on what others think of us or our home that we forget it is not about what they think. It is about being entrusted with precious gifts called children from a heavenly Father.
          So the next time you come visit me, you may see walls that need painted or a yard that could be mowed. You can come in and see laundry on my couch or dishes in my sink...but come in anyway. Because I will pour you a glass of tea and we will talk and we will laugh and we will both walk away feeling better...not because my house was perfect, but because we spent time on building a relationship with each other...and that my friends is what God is all about! He longs to get to know your heart in the most intimate of ways...He longs to have you put down the broom, or the telephone, or the computer, or whatever it is that keeps you distracted from spending time with Him. I never thought I would ever be able to function in a house that had dishes in the sink or laundry undone...but God changes our hearts when we let Him! He renews and transforms our mind into thinking more like Him and that grows us into more relationship minded...and less cleanaholic:) And the greatest thing I have found, is that many others struggle with this as well...and when we are brave enough to show our "dirty" house to each other, it breaks down walls and barriers that we have with each other as women. We realize that others struggle with keeping it all caught up. I pray that God will continue to grow me and help me be brave enough to show my imperfections so that they can see that it is through Him, and only Him, that I make it through each day:)