Getting unstuck in my walk with Christ - Day 11

     I'm keeping today's post fairly short because both of my parents are coming down for a visit and we all know what happens when we're in the midst of decluttering/organizing...it's a mess!!  So today I'm going to be doing mostly triage to make the living room look presentable - part of this is throwing away all the trash and tossing the recycling in their appropriate bags.  No, I don't mean that I live in a pigsty and I bet many of you may also have this problem ;-)  For example::
- plastic grocery bags
- old papers
- receipts
- broken appliances a.k.a. coffee makers (yup, this totally happened to me a couple days ago)
- old food in the fridge
- used dryer sheets
- empty boxes
- empty plastic bottles and cans
...I think you get the idea...

     I also need to make beds, clean out the litterbox, carry out the trash, wipe down some surfaces, and replace all of my air fresheners.  Oh me...while it's always a lot of work pre-visit, it's so nice to see the people I love that I don't get to see that often AND I can't help but enjoy the after effects of getting some extra cleaning out of the way...

     I haven't been linking to many of Sarah Mae's posts recently because she pretty much stops at Day 13 and moves on to a new series.  I'm hoping to spread out her challenges over my 31 days (which will in the end be 31 days even if it goes into August).  I'm going to skip ahead to Sarah Mae's Day 12 - "There is Worship in the Cleaning" - for today, but will jump back to Day 10 later :-)

She shares a passage of scripture that goes along great with my Day 6 post : Colossians 3:23-24 - -

23  Whatever you do, work heartily, 

as for the Lord and not for men,

24  knowing that from the Lord 

you will receive the inheritance as your reward.

You are serving the Lord Christ.

     Remember the Day 6 Unstuck question - - What does it mean to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength?  Well this passage from Colossians puts it quite clearly.  Whatever obligations our daily lives consist of, we must carry them out as if we are doing them for God Himself.  By putting such whole hearted effort into our daily actions, we also consequently, show our sacrificial love towards others.  And this hearkens all the way back to my Day 4 post in which I talked about how keeping our living spaces clean is a way of sacrificially loving others.
     So with today's looming parental visit in mind...I will keep an upbeat attitude of sacrificial love as I clean, so I can actively show I care enough about them to make the extra effort in making my place look nice.  [Of course, I can't get away from the selfish dimension of the whole thing either - - I would much prefer having a visit where we can focus on each other and not my deficiencies as a homemaker.  But if I keep this selfish thought in the back of my mind, then the pre-visit cleaning should go more smoothly and with much less stress.]

My dad and me on my 24th b-day :-)

I'm SO happy he's coming along with my mom...

totally unexpected!

That's all for now...