Rocket Science and the Art of Cleaning

My little business that I co-own with my soon-to-be sister in law Mikala, or Mikaykay, has taught me something about cleaning.

You see we teach people how to eat healthy, which often involves meal planning.   Unfortunately there is no secret key to getting healthy meals on your table.  It takes discipline, determination, a little strategy.  and eventually it becomes a habit.

BUT --- I have been waiting for this secret key to having a clean house, and of course I have not yet found it.  I would clean and then it would get messy again.   I kept thinking that somehow I would figure out the secret that clean people magically have and I too could boast of organization and cleanliness.

Recently while discussing with someone that meal planning is simply something that you must sit down and do I realized that this also applies to cleaning.

It was like I was Einstein who had just discovered a new law of physics.  

YOU MUST CLEAN ALL THE TIME, AND YOU SIMPLY HAVE TO JUST DO IT?

WHY???????

Going Home

This past weekend I helped throw a baby shower in College Station, and Chris had a trip planned with our group of friends to go to a hog wrestling tournament in Sabinal, Tx.  

Friday night I packed up the envoy with the puppy, my hair dryer, and a little mexican food from Escalantes and we headed to Magnolia.   Magnolia is the home of the barn, our previous home, and my parents house.   Christmas was the last time I had spent the night at my parents house, so I figured it was a good time to visit.

I got to my parents house well after dinner, so I brought my fajita salad in and sat at my parents huge kitchen table .  My mom and my soon to be sister in law sat with me as I ate.  My Dad and brothers sauntered in and out, and Giada got to play with her cousin Jack The Great Dane.  

Instead of staying in "my room" I stayed in the guest bedroom.  My mom had put clean sheets on the bed and had everything all prepared for me.

Growing up you have no idea how wonderful this is, but after having your own guest bedroom you understand what a wonderful treat it is to not have to pur your own sheets on the bed.

Saturday was whirlwind of errands and activity as me and my Mom prepared for the baby shower in College Station.   We got home late Saturday night and sat on the couch while my Dad made us both hot raspberry zinger tea.  

Saturday night I got to fully relax and enjoy being "home".   Sunday morning I slept late and woke up to my Dad making breakfast in the kitchen.   As I poured myself a cup of coffee I thought how wonderful it was to wake up to coffee and breakfast that I did not prepare for myself.    My entire family, with the exception of Chris who was very much missed, sat down for one of my Dad's famous breakfasts and had good conversation.  After breakfast my Mom and I went on a walk on the three mile loop in High Meadow Ranch.   Walking is my love language, so when people go on walks with me I feel really loved.

It was such a treat to be home.   After growing up and having a house of my own I felt totally pampered at my parents house.   Which is funny because I got that treatment for 18 years thinking it was totally normal and having no idea how much our parents did for us.  It was just good to go home and hang out with my family, so good I felt like I needed to blog about it.   My Dad's breakfasts have a tendency to do that to people :)

Landscaping

A week ago today my big, strapping, muscle bound husband ripped up all the horrible and terrible shrubs out of my front yard.   He hacked, sawed, and dug until those ugly shrubs were ripped up out of the ground, roots and all.   I raked leaves and filled expensive, Houston required, recyclable trash bags with the debris from my husband's work.   Truly, I did not help much but at least I wanted to look like I was trying as he was using all his force to prep my flower beds for spring.   While my flowers beds are still in the transitional phase I know that soon they will be beautiful thanks to my handsome husband.

My friend Liz describes this process perfectly on her blog A Little Peace of Home.   

Remember the post where I talked about wanting to get comfortable being uncomfortable?   Ever since I wrote that post I have been waiting on God to give me huge opportunities to start to grow.   I expected Him to start revealing himself to me in new ways, and that my entire life would start to take shape and be different.  Instead it has been "all quiet on the western front" as I have tried to have quiet times and seek Him.   

It was not until this morning that I realized that my heart needed some "landscaping" of its own to be done by my big, strapping, muscle bound Jesus.   I just gave up this morning and got down on my knees during my quiet time.   G laid next to me and I laid my heart before God and told Him that I was not going to get up until He spoke something to my heart.  

Lately I have felt so distracted by all that I have to do, want to do, and hope to do that I in fact have done no doing at all.   This entire week I have badgered my husband with statements like "I feel worthless", "I need to know more of who I am in Jesus, and " I want to know if I am doing the right thing".

As I laid before Jesus this morning I realized that I have been like the person James talks about in chapter 1 verse 23 & 24 AMP "For if anyone only listens to the Word without obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his [own] face in a mirror; For he thoughtfully observes himself, and then goes off and promptly forgets what he was like".   

Can you say convicting?  Regarding my worth in Jesus and and here on this earth I have been like "a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute) , [he is] unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything [he thinks, feels, decides]. James 1:8 AMP   As I said in the previous blog post since I graduated college I have been caught between living life comfortably and uncomfortably.   I have been like "one who wavers (hesitates, doubting) like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind".James 1:6b AMP.  I have heard God speak to me about who I am in Him and what He has planned for me to do, but in doubt I have just listened and have done nothing.

I repented this morning.  I asked God to change my thinking.   I told Him that His ways are above my ways, that His thoughts are above my thoughts, and the His will is above my will.   

"In simple humility, let our Gardner, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life." James 1:21b MSG

God also convicted me about not trusting Him about our future.   This shows how comfortable I have gotten because my entire life has been based on me having supernatural faith in God regarding anything I have ever done or received.  My faith had nothing to do with me being supernatural, but it had everything to do with the fact that I have always believed that God's way was the only way I could ever do anything.   I laid my desire to secure my future before God and decided to trust Him for today and tomorrow.   I believe as you grow up you think it is the responsible thing to do to worry about the future and try to scratch out some form of security for yourself.   While planning is always wise, worrying is definitely not.   

"And who of you by worrying and being anxious can add one unit of measure (cubit) to his stature or to the span of his life? And why should you be anxious about clothes? Consider the lilies of the field and learn thoroughly how they grow; they neither toil nor spin.  Yes I tell you, even Solomon in all his magnificence was not arrayed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and green and tomorrow is tossed into the furnace, will He not much more surely clothe you, O you of little faith?  Therefore do no worry and be anxious saying What are we going to eat? or, What are we going to have to drink? or, What are we going to have to wear? For the heathen wish for and crave and diligently seek all these things, and your heavenly Father know well that you need them all.  But seek first of all His kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing things and being right), and then all these things taken together will be given you besides.  So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own.  Sufficient for each day is its own trouble."  Matt 6:27-34 AMP

I share these things with you this morning because I am so guilty of letting God landscape me, and then after He has planted me with a beautiful garden of flowers then sharing with you how the process went.  Instead today I have invited you into the process.   Like my own front yard I am in the transitional phase, not yet planted just uprooted and bare.   

My prayer for myself this morning is this:

"But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God-the free life! -even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action.  That person will find delight and affirmation in the action."  James 1:25 MSG

[ AMP = The Amplified Bible.  MSG = The Message Bible ]

I just want to be comfortable ... but I also want to grow.

This is part of an email I wrote to one of my besties Kelley Ellis .

I simply wanted to share it with you because you are my bloggie readers, and I must redeem myself from my Bieber Fever declaration.    Actually I want to share it with you because hopefully you can watch me grow.  I know that Jesus always answers these kinds of prayers, and I so I want to give him the opportunity to get the glory.

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Last night Sheridan and I had the first Campaigners with our freshman girls.  It has been over 3 years since I have lead or attended a bible study or a physical accountability group where we discussed the word.   Although we only had a few girls and our conversation was skin deep at best, my heart strings were tugged and God started speaking.

I realized this morning that since I graduated college I have wanted to live life comfortably.  What I mean by that is that I have not wanted to stretch myself too much, and I most certainly did not want God to stretch me too much.  While I have gone through a ton of growing experiences over the past 3 years and am now a better person.  I have held God at arms reach in certain areas of my life.  Areas that over the last year He has slowly been revealing to me.   Buying this house was an area that grew and stretched beyond what I thought I could handle, and yet here we are completely provided for.  I realized last fall that I was not allowing God to grow me into what he was and is calling me to do regarding a job / making a living.   When I graduated college I basically had a huge list of things that I told God I would NEVER do.  I essentially completely opposed Him from doing what He wanted to do in my life.  This particular realization has come into view over that past six to eight months.  Starting Kitchen Sisters is definitely a result of me allowing God to move me, and yet I still fear that I have not completely given up control in this area. Honestly, me not submitting completely to Jesus scares me way more than submitting to Him.  Yet, I still struggle to submit and give up control completely.

This morning came a whole new scenario where God showed me that I have been holding him back from doing what He wants to in life.   I realized that I have held back the areas of being planted in our church, attending a bible study, or even being mentored by a wiser woman.  Simply because I wanted to be comfortable.  I realize that not having too many commitments early on in marriage is a good thing, but I believe I went from focusing on building my marriage to protecting myself from uncomfortable situations.  My heart was flooded with emotion this morning by the desire to be surrounded by Godly women who want to speak the word into my life.  My desire to be part of a bible study suddenly appeared at the forefront of my thoughts.  Not my desire to lead a bible study but simply the desire to be a part of one.  The desire to be poured into.  A hunger for Jesus that I have not had in a long time because I so wanted to be comfortable.

I am writing all these things to you because I want your prayer.   I want and need fellowship in Jesus.  I want to learn and grow and I want to be ok with being uncomfortable.  

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I leave you with this

Sometimes G likes to wear hangers as necklaces