Today was not supposed to be about cleaning my house. We went to Home Depot to get some seeds for our garden. Hubby decided it was also time to get a new toilet. Now, you have to understand- I've been wanting a new toilet for the main bathroom for a while now. Our current toilet is one of those low flow environmentally friendly pieces o' crap. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about being environmentally friendly. But the makers of these toilets forgot to look at one thing in making these toilets- little butts. When my tiny butted 5yo sits on the potty and poops, the poop does not land in the middle, as the toilet assumes. Nope. It lands directly on the spot that only gets a tiny little swish of water. The result: every time my 5yo poops, it remains stuck on the side of the toilet. She flushes and flushes and flushes, but it never gets rid of all the poop. So guess who has to clean the toilet?
As hubby led me to the toilet aisle (and really, how often do we get to say that one?), we passed the paint aisle. When we bought our house, the house was in desperate need of interior paint. So far, the only rooms we painted have been bedrooms and my office. Our Christmas present from my mom last year was paint for the living room and dining room- we just needed to pick the colors. Which we haven't done yet. But I recently got a coupon for free paint samples, so I thought I'd pick up some samples and finally figure it out. We decided we want to do one of those cool painting techniques. So as I passed the paint aisle on the way to the toilet aisle, I thought it'd be great to test the new technique on the bathroom. If we paint while the old toilet is out, it'd be so much easier to paint the bathroom.
I arrived home, armed with new toilet and paint chips so I could decide which colors I wanted to sample. When I entered the bathroom, the first thing I saw was... poop. Yep. The whole reason for the new toilet. So I did what I do. I started scrubbing. Which led me to think that I hadn't scrubbed the other three toilets in the house in a while, so I did my usual toilet scrubbing routine. Which led to the upstairs bathroom and realizing how gross it was. Hubby had just re-grouted the tub, but for some reason, it split and was already falling out. For some reason, that really bugged me today. So I decided to take out the yucky grout and clean the tub. As I felt the satisfaction of getting out the yucky grout, I realized the rest of the grout was dirty. So I got out the bleach pen and toothbrush and cleaned that grout too.
Cleaning the grout, however, made me realize how disgusting the baseboards in the bathroom were. So I took the toothbrush to the baseboards. Which led to me realizing how disgusting the floor was. It's that yucky pitted linoleum that never seems to get clean. Since I had the toothbrush, I decided, hey, why not deep clean the floor too? So I grabbed a scrubber and I got down and scrubbed the floor.
Which led to cleaning another bathroom. For everything I cleaned, I noticed one more dirty thing. I hit a point where I knew I should quit because if I didn't, my body was going to be sore. But the newfound cleanliness was addictive. I craved more clean. So I kept going.
Somewhere between scrubbing the ring around the toilet with a toothbrush and taking that same toothbrush to the space between the baseboards and the tile, it hit me. This is a lot like the sin in our lives.
It starts with noticing one place to improve. Which leads to finding more dirty spots. And more and more and more and more... However, sin is a lot like my dirty house. No matter how hard I scrub, no matter where I scrub, the kids or the dog or the man is going to run through the house with dirty feet, and I'm going to have to scrub again.
How often do we scrub at the sin in our lives, cleaning one place only to find that it doesn't stay clean very long. Even if we slap a coat of paint on it or do a major remodel, our human bodies are just human bodies. We can never make ourselves perfect, just like our homes will never be perfectly clean.
But we sure try to make it that way, don't we?
Some days, my greatest wish is to have a magic button that would get my house in order. I may not be able to push a button and get the Jetsons maid, but at least with my spiritual life, I have a God who does just that. I can't scrub my life clean, but God gives me a clean slate. If I just trust Him to give it to me.
Who's cleaning your house?
1 comment:
This is a great post, Danica. So true. Thank God we aren't expected to be self-cleaning!
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