Keeping the Dirt out of our Homes

It was a painful cleaning week.  You know the times where you really try to teach the kids how it's suppose to be done.  It takes forever.  Explaining and showing, and redoing, and helping them to feel really good about what they are doing in the process.  I've decided it's one of the hardest things you do as a parent...at least for me.  It would be so much easier to send them out on the trampoline and just do it myself. However, I know, and everyone else knows, this isn't going to help them in the long run, and it certainly won't help them have a vested interest in keeping the house clean now if they don't own part of it.

Well, as we were cleaning we had a phenomenon occur which happens frequently during cleaning day in our home.  While one child is trying to clean the floors, the other is trying to clean the carpets, and the overlap means either sofas are on the tile, or chairs on the carpet, and it can be a little contentious while trying to work out who should do what first.  This led to an interesting conversation.  We were talking about the order of things, and how sometimes sweeping around the carpet needs to be done before vacuuming the carpet so you don't track all the dirt from the floor onto the clean carpet.  This led to a discussion not about cleaning floors, but about repentance.

Sometimes when we are working on changing a habit we have developed, or in repenting of something we've done, we don't put in the effort to remove ourselves from the environment that got us there in the first place.  Just like the situation with the carpets and the floor around it.  If a teenager has gotten themselves in a situation where they have started drinking because he/she was going to parties, repenting of the drinking may clean the carpet, but if he/she continues to go to parties, chances are the dirt from the floor is going to get tracked back in.  In other words, you can't expect to change the behavior if you aren't willing to change your surroundings.

The greatest part of the discussion...cleaning day was very pleasant.  Everyone was very helpful, and eager to work together to make sure the dirt from another area wasn't making into an area that was already clean.  Hence, the real parallel between the cleaning and repentance.  I feel like sometimes we think when we make a mistake the people who are closest to you and love you the most may be disappointed, frustrated or even angry with us if they know what's happened.  The reality is, when those who truly love you know, they want to help you in any way they can.  They want to help you to keep your life clean.

I hope my children got the message...there is a lot more than vacuuming and sweeping involved when it comes to keeping the dirt of the world out of our homes.