Being Me

I have always struggled with being neat.  My bedroom growing up was always a mess.  I didn't see the point in putting my clothes away if I was just going to get them out to wear again.  The same goes for making my bed.  But when I did clean, I really cleaned.  It was an all day job.  I take everything out of its place, dust, look through, reminisce, reorganize, and put things away - often in a new place.  On rare occasions, I might get rid of something, but I'm a huge pack rat so I hold on to almost anything.

Of course, this all carried over into adulthood.  My dorm room at college was always a mess - except for the days they were inspected.  :)  I can do a quick clean if necessary, but to me, it's not satisfactory unless it's perfect and since prefection takes a lot of time, I don't bother starting.  I got married when I was 20, and you guessed it, always a messy house.  Seth and I would clean together when preparing for company but in college, company could drop by unannounced.  Friends would often do my dishes for me.  But I didn't mind too much.  I was a busy college student, Seth was student teaching or working full-time.  Neither of us put in much effort in keeping the place clean.

A couple years ago, someone came to me as sort of an "intervention" on my lack of homemaking skills.  By this point, I had been working harder at keeping a nice home, the kids had their chores to do and I was homeschooling.  I have always known my house wasn't perfectlly clean, especially with short-notice guests or weekly guests.  But when family came to town, Seth and I worked like crazy to get the house nice, especially if someone was staying in our house over night.  That wasn't even good enough.  It hurt.  I wanted to quit trying.  I didn't want anyone to come to my house ever again.  If my best still wasn't good enough, why bother?

This past weekend my parents, Seth's parents, and my brother-in-law came to town to help us reshingle our roof.  It was the first time someone has stayed in our house since that intervention.  Once I realized how many people would be around (not everyone stayed in our house over night) and that someone was actually going to sleep here, I freaked out.  This was about a month before anyone was going to come and I had an extremely emotional panic attack.  What was I going to do?

Someone from my church realized that I was really struggling and she sat me down and talked with me.  She pointed out that this is my personality.  I am the creative one, the peace-maker, driven to make everyone happy.  Having so many people coming to my home at once was stressing me out to the point that I was completely useless and not focused on God at all.  The woman just told me to be myself.  To not try to impress everyone, not try to please everyone, but to accept who I am, who God made me to be.

So, for the first time ever, I wasn't in a sweaty, cleaning mess when people started to arrive.  In fact, I had been sick and unable to do much anyway.  But I didn't stress out about it.  Seth ended up having to work late so he couldn't help much either.  I made a point to clean the kitchen counters, clean the bathroom, and made sure the kids' rooms were clean, especially the room that my brother-in-law would be staying in.  I made the beds with clean sheets and collapsed on the couch.

Before my parents arrived, I clean more in the kitchen and made more room in the living room to sit.  By the time my in-laws arrived, more areas were cleaned.  But, I still had dirty dishes sitting on the counter next to the sink.  I still had bins sitting in the living room full of papers I had just gone through and sorted.  I had a box of miscellaneous items I still needed to sort through sitting next to the couch.  My end tables weren't cleaned off or organized.  But this was my house.  I did put in a little extra effort for the guests, but I also felt free to be myself.  I didn't stress about getting it spotless and perfectly clean, I didn't feel guilty about not getting it prefectly clean, and I didn't worry too much about what everyone thought.  My kids were doing their chores, I was doing mine.  I kept in routine as much as I could - you know with company how routine just goes out the window!

My mom and mother-in-law helped clean up after supper one evening and helped finish washing all the dishes that had been left there from previous meals.  I wasn't embarrassed at all, but was thankful we could work together and I actually enjoyed working with them.  My parents and Seth's parents haven't seen each other since our wedding so it was fun to see them together again after so many years!

My in-laws are still here.  The kids and I are still keeping up with our routine the best we can.  Although, I'm still fighting a cold so I haven't been putting too much pressure on doing school this week and the kids have helped with cleaning up old shingles too.  The kids continue their chores, I continue mine, and my mother-in-law cleans up what we miss.  :)  I honestly don't mind at all.  This is our life.  This is what we do day to day.

With homeschooling, a hard-working husband who comes home exhausted and sometimes works late, and me with the extra tiredness of hypothyroidism, we certainly do our best.  It's not perfect, it may not be clean according to other people's standards, and we may not get everything on our list done everyday, but we do it.  I am working on doing it with joy and doing it for the Lord.  I often have to remind the kids of doing the same.  Some days go well, some days are hard.  I make no excuses.

I am trying my best to simply be me and not trying to be anyone else, or clean like anyone else.  This is my home.  This is how we make it work.  I have more joy when I am just being me.

Am I Grateful?

Last night, as I was going to sleep, I started praying as I often do.  Seth and I had a conversation about how cold it would be in Idaho and if the kids and I could handle it if we lived there.  We have planned on making our permanent home in Idaho or close to it; however, God has not yet opened that door.

I am pretty happy being in Wichita, though.  Our church really helps with that.  And I honestly wouldn't mind staying here the rest of our lives.  It's this house that I really hate living in.

So, as I prayed, I pointed out to God, again, that we are in desperate need of getting out of this house.  And I began to tell Him why when my mind started to wander.  Of course God knows our needs better than we do and I struggle sometimes trusting Him when He says to stay in this house for now.

Then, I suddenly became aware of something.  I was humming a song in my head and my fingers were dancing along.  I didn't realize I was "humming" anything at all.  Last I remembered, I was just simply talking to God about moving, anywhere, out of this house.  The song I was "humming" was a song I haven't heard since I was a kid.  I had sung it randomly or to my children at times, but it wasn't a song that was brought up very often.  However, God decided to bring it to my mind.

Are you grumbly hateful or humbly grateful?

What's your attitude?

Do you grumble and groan or let it be known

You're grateful for all God's done for you?

Yeah, I realized my fault immediately and asked for God's forgiveness.  Then I lied there in bed thinking about how to be grateful for this house.  There are plenty of things I could tell you without hesitation that I hate about living in this house.  But, I discovered last night, there are some pretty great things about living in this house, too.

1.  We have a shower.  I am grateful that in the one bathroom, there IS a shower!  Why is that so significant?  In the house I grew up in, the only shower in the house was a cold make-shift shower in the unfinished basement.  My dad was pretty much the only person to use it regularly.  The shower was small blocks of wood surrounding a drain with a curtain that was a bit too short to go all the way around the drain area.  The faucet handles were actually about 3 or 4 feet outside of the shower so if you wanted to adjust the temperature, you had to get out, turn the knobs, then wait for the shower to respond hoping you adjusted correctly.  We did finally get a shower in our upstairs bathroom shortly after my older sister graduated from high school.  That would mean I had just finished my sophomore year.  A shower is something I now take for granted, but I was reminded last night that it is truly a blessing.

2.  We have a mostly finished basement.  This house didn't start out that way.  We have put in a lot of work to add to our living space.  As I said earlier, the house I grew up in did not have a finished basement.

3.  Our backyard is amazing.  It's big and perfect.  It has a large tree that I absolutely love - although Seth hates it because it leaves a mess of helicopter leaves.  I personally think that every house should have a large tree in the yard.  I grew up with a huge pine tree in the front yard.  I climbed it often and once, almost made it to the top.  The tree is no longer there so I truly enjoy the large tree we have now.

4.  And of course the fact that we have a house is a blessing and something that I, too often, take for granted.  We don't have to worry about neighbors on the other side of a wall as you would in an apartment or condo.  We don't have to worry about a landlord because this house is ours.  And, we're not living on the street or in a car or in a shelter.  We own our own home.  That is huge!!

So, shame on me for begging God to get us out of this house.  I still have some work to do on not hating this house, but forcing myself to find things about it to be grateful for is going to make it easier to accept that God still wants us here for a reason.  And I trust Him.