Did I say EVERYTHING?

I did, didn't I? I said that everything was sacred.

Well. Well, well, well.

Isn't it just like God to test that right off the bat? Just when I was about to wax eloquently about the symbolism I see in children's books and in fictionalized events of good vs. evil, I was met a much more practical test of my theory.

My sons' bedroom.

I often tell people that housekeeping is not my spiritual gift. Maintaining a decent home is an ongoing challenge for me. This weekend my boys were invited to spend some time with my sister and I decided to take advantage of the time to clean their bedroom. We need to take out the carpet and repaint and this seemed like a good time to get the prep work done.

I will spare you the gory details, but this is going to be a bigger job than I thought it would be. Their bedroom is next to the bathroom. Seems that there was a water leak a while back. It's not attractive.

So my challenge today is to find the sacred element of cleaning up a room that's making me angry every time I walk into it. How can I breathe God into this situation? And what can I do from now on to keep it from becoming such an ungodly mess?

1. I can work in small amounts of time. 45 minutes in and 15 minutes out. This will not only give me time to calm down, it will also allow me to breathe fresh air.
2. Praying instead of stewing. I don't remember where I first heard that concept, but it's a great one. When faced with mundane tasks that you find irritating, try praying for the person you're doing it for instead of stewing about the never ending nature of the task.
3. I can add discipline in the physical realm into my desire to be spiritually disciplined. Part of my renewed quest for Truth has been a time of focused prayer and meditation each morning. In addition to this, I need to add some routine physical tasks for my boys to help them learn to care for things. It's a life skill they need.

So . . .here I go to sally forth into the next 45 minute block of time. A time of prayer and discipline and sacred quest for Truth.

Yeah. That sounds so much better than doing housework.