I have long since felt that the state of my laundry room reflects the state of my internal life. When the pace of my life is relatively calm, my laundry room/office is neat and organized, everything in its place; I’m up to date on my laundry, everything’s cleaned, washed and put away. But when life is on hyper speed – overflowing with school parties, birthday parties, Christmas, or other special occasions in life – my laundry room is overcrowded with mountains of laundry piled up, rolls of wrapping paper, boxes of gifts needing to be wrapped, To-Do lists on post it notes all over the place and a illusive grocery list that gets buried under the mess -that’s when my life is spinning like it’s on spin cycle, swirling out of control and sometimes sending the load off kilter and life’s banging around and thumping into the dryer. It’s moments like that – when I can’t even walk around in my laundry room – I know it’s time to recalibrate and stop the cycle. But how exactly do you do that? I have one friend who does a load of laundry every day. Her machine is constantly spinning. That seems to work for her. But for me, I’ve learned I can’t do laundry every day. If I do, it leaves me feeling that I’ve never completed a task. I’ve never rested. Never let the spin cycle stop and rest. I’ve learned the importance of stopping. Resting. Being still. It’s applies to laundry as it does to life. If we’re constantly spinning, always working, never resting. It seems to drain the joy out of life. But when I stop the spinning, and actually allow myself to rest. Instead of turning around and around with that out of control drained feeling, instead, I feel refreshed, renewed. Better able to handle it when life gets off kilter and bangs me around a bit.
I know another friend who is intentional about having “Prayer Stops” in her day. She sets her phone to chime a church bell serenade that calls her to pray for a minute three times a day. She is disciplined about stopping the spin cycle. I aspire to incorporate her prayer discipline into my daily routine. I’m going to try during the remaining days of Lent to incorporate prayer stops into my days. I’m also going to clean up my laundry room so I have some white space in which to think.
There are even some days when I’ve been known to close the door on my messy laundry room and go find another place where I can sit and be still. Is it hard for me to leave a task undone, walk away from a mess? Yes! But at the same time, when I’m too soul weary to tackle it and instead feel I’m under the mess – it’s best for me to take a break. Start afresh in the morning. Then I’m better able to find the matches for the missing socks, answer the questions, respond to the emails, check off the next thing on my to-do, or even unbury that missing to do list! Life’s messy. What I’m learning is if I wait to rest until every mess is cleaned or wait to eat until the kitchen is cleaned – I’ll never rest and I’ll never eat! Instead, I think we’re supposed to look to God’s example. Even He rested on the seventh day! So that’s why if you come to my house you might find a mess piled up in my laundry room. But let’s just close the door and sit down with some coffee to chat!?
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| The sign of a busy week! |