I love to clean. I really do.
Cleaning for me is therapy. If my house is clean, I'm at peace. I like things in order and I like my house to smell nice. After I clean up, I often like to just sit, look around and enjoy it.
Don't get me wrong, my house is NOT a museum. Kids AND dogs live here. I do the best I can! It's definitely not as easy keeping your house clean when children live there. Sometimes when I'm upset that my kids have made a mess and they've left it and moved on (to some other part of the house to destroy), I hear my mother's voice coming out of my mouth: "Do you think there's a maid here?!?!?"
What have I have noticed is that no matter how much of a slob someone is, they appreciate a clean space. Those of you who live with slobs can certainly feel me on this....don't they seem to gravitate towards the area you've just cleaned up?
For example, you clean up the kitchen for the night. In our house, we have a phrase to describe this:"Kitchen's closed." Isn't it funny that is exactly when people all of a sudden want to go in there and make a sandwich? The kitchen has been "open" all friggin' day and now, just as the counters are shining, the dishwasher's loaded and running and everything has been put away...now you get a hankerin' for something to eat? Are you serious? Same thing with the bathroom. You take 20 minutes to clean the tub, toilet, sink, counter tops and mirrors and now someone wants to go in there and wash and blow dry their hair or worse, give themselves a haircut. Can't we just enjoy the clean space for a little while? Did you have to do that now? It couldn't have waited a couple of days?
I know what you're thinking. That I'm stone crazy. Isn't the kitchen for preparing meals? Where else do I expect people to cut their hair or wash it? We'll I don't have an answer for you, except to say...I wouldn't know you were doing any of these things if you cleaned up after yourself when you were done. A good cleaning job will leave no evidence to the naked eye of what just happened in a room. I don't have a blue light (although the thought of getting one has crossed my mind) or a degree in forensic science. I just know clean.
Here's how I think about cleaning. Taking care of your things is another way to show God, the Universe or whatever higher power that you answer to that you are grateful for what you have been given. We have all asked for things - "Oh Lord, if you just let me get that apartment, I would be so grateful." or "God, please let me get approved for this car loan so I can get off the bus, or out of this Pinto.". This benevolent force bestows upon us this blessing and what do some of us do? We treat it like crap. We allow it to stay dirty. We don't take care of it.
Think about it another way. If you gave a close friend or relative a gift - one you knew that they'd wanted for quite a while now - an outfit, let's say...and you went to their house to visit and found this "very special outfit" rumpled, in a ball on the floor, you'd get the impression that they didn't really want it as much as they said and you'd be kinda pissed, right?
I'm not trying to assign fallible human emotions to God, or presume to know what He or She thinks. I'm not that wise. I just think that if we were created in His image that He would want us to demonstrate that we appreciate what we've been given, not just pay lip service to placate Him. Appreciation, like love, is an action word. It's the doing that provides the proof that the feeling actually exists within you. It proves that you understand what receiving the gifts mean and what your responsibility is in taking care of it. It doesn't matter if that gift is a home, a car or a nice pair of shoes. If you were provided with either the means to buy it or opportunity to receive it as a gift, that means you've been blessed...reason enough to be grateful and act grateful.
