Counting my Blessings

I found myself "laboring" over a lengthy series of chores this past weekend.  I'm still short of having the entire house cleaned through once, but I have a never-ending list of things that I need to take care of on a daily basis:  laundry, cooking, dishes, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, cleaning bathrooms...etc.  Don't get me wrong; I'm taking a great deal of pride in the way the house looks now, and I am experiencing a greater level of confidence in my homemaking abilities.  It's just that I felt a little overwhelmed by the fact that these tasks are never going to end.

Then I remembered something I read a few weeks ago, suggesting a technique that will help us homemakers avoid thinking about our daily work as drudgery.  We should think of it, instead, as a blessing.

I had to clean TWO toilets.  How incredibly blessed I am that I have TWO toilets in my house!  There are millions of people in the world who have none.  There are millions more who have one, but not two.  And look at the products I have at my fingertips to keep the toilets sanitary and shining; I have no worries that my children are going to come into contact with some terrible disease because they used an unsanitary toilet.

I had to wash an entire sink full of dishes.  Wow, we have dishes!  How many people out there don't?  How many people in the world only wish that they had enough food to cook and serve on dishes in the first place?  How many more don't have the water to clean themselves or their plates with -- or, if they do have water, had to walk three miles to get it in a bucket?

I had to clean out two bathtubs and a stand-up shower. Suddenly, that seems like an extraordinary privilege more than it does a chore.  I take a bath -- every single day -- in clean, hot, running water.  I don't have to share my tub with anyone except my own family.

When I ran the vacuum, I thought about the comfort our rug brought the family and the convenience of electricity that allowed me to do so in the first place.  When I folded my kids' clothes, I considered how fortunate they were to have beautiful, comfortable, serviceable clothes (more than they will ever need) provided by people who love them dearly.  When I swept Cheerios off the kitchen floor, I thanked God that I had two arms and two legs and the strength and health to keep my house tidy.  As I did each task, I earnestly considered the many ways in which I had been blessed.

Here's the thing:  I have heard "count your blessings" all my life, and I have done it so many times when it comes to the people and things in my life (husband, kids, friends, home, job, etc.).  But I don't think that I have ever once honestly considered how even that which I think of as hard work or an undesirable chore is still evidence of the many, many gifts in my life.  It was the strangest thing to find myself grinning and close to tears as I scrubbed toilets and floors and folded burp cloths, but it was also the most joy I've ever gotten from housework.

Queen of the Castle

A few posts ago, I mentioned a book that I'm currently reading; it's called Queen of the Castle:  52 Weeks of Encouragement for the Uninspired, Domestically Challenged, or Just Plain Tired Homemaker by Lynn Bowen Walker.  A dear friend of mine mentioned it to me a year or so ago, and another friend gave it to me as a gift before the military moved her family to the other side of the country a few months ago.  Anyway, Lynn approaches homemaking with an annually-organized eye:  she makes suggestions for Easter projects, for example, two weeks before you actually need them so that there's time to put the ideas together.  Right now, I'm working through some chapters on cleaning, and it's been very inspiring and encouraging to read her thoughts and suggestions.  I'm so, so glad that I'm not the only mother with young kids that has struggled to keep a tidy, organized home; that knowledge alone has helped me tremendously.  And, even though I'm on this "quest" to scrub my house until it sparkles, one chapter I read recently really stuck with me.  Lynn mentions that our role as homemakers is to create a peaceful home...one where our children feel love and support, where our husbands look forward to coming home, and where utter chaos is kept in check.  But a peaceful home is not necessarily a home out of a magazine or a display window; it's more important to bake cookies, read a picture book, or take a walk together than to mop the kitchen, at least in most cases.