Thoughts from house-cleaning

By Mary

We moved to our new house sight unseen. We were pretty much going off what was available within a short timeline, limited properties in our budget, even more limited properties making allowance for our dog, and finding an area where we felt pretty good about me being alone with the kids the majority of the time amidst mixed internet reviews of things like "love this city, there's no crime", and "my neighbor across the street was shot in broad daylight".

So when we moved, we knew we were dropping two bedrooms and about 1000 square feet off of our home size and were kind of just hoping for the best. And I'm so thankful for how well our things actually fit here, especially when we showed up and the layout was completely different from what I had anticipated from the pictures. I actually kind of love that the kids share rooms now, I like cleaning half the amount of toilets, and while I miss having a dedicated space for guests, at least it doesn't take me quite so long to vacuum. There's really only one thing I really don't care for-the kitchen counter-tops.

They're tile. And its not just that they're tile. The bathroom counter-tops are tile and they don't really bother me. They're these textured tiles that somehow cause my pots and pans to leave behind color that I have to really scrub to remove. They have these rounded edges that make it difficult to wipe crumbs up into the sink, or off the counter into my hand. And the grout lines are so thin, it seems impossible to really get clean. But its even harder to make it LOOK really clean. Somebody told me once that people loved the kind of stone counter-tops we had in Beaufort because the pattern camouflaged crumbs and spills so it appeared cleaner than it was. I never gave it much thought, but maybe that's part of why these tiles bother me so much. Maybe I miss the ease of the appearance of cleanliness.

On the other hand, the carpet here is sort of speckled, and I'm a little disappointed every time I vacuum because I don't get the impression of getting it quite as clean as I used to when I vacuumed the single-tone carpet where I could easily spot the dog hair and crumbs and crunched up leaves. I always felt so rewarded getting it really clean.

Somehow my random carpet-and-counter thoughts started me thinking about purity and righteousness while I was vacuuming the other day. I think it can be easy, comfortable, to let low standards make a little pattern on your life so you don't even notice sin's filth when it creeps in. How much harder to hold to God's standards of purity, where anything less than what is pure and lovely and noble and excellent makes a glaring mark. So I'm praying for my heart to be aligned with His, and for the reward of true purity to outweigh the ease of only having the appearance of cleanliness.