Growth Relationships

Learning from Laundry

All of us have chores that we don’t mind doing, and some that we wish we never had to do again.  For me, doing the laundry is one of the chores that fall into the latter category. I actually don’t mind getting the laundry started – after all, throwing the clothes into the washer and then into the dryer isn’t that difficult, but once the dryer buzzer goes off, I’ll come up with all kinds of excuses not to finish the job. This really isn’t a good idea, since eventually I always have to do it, but I avoid it like most people avoid the dentist.

My apathy towards folding our clean clothes has some interesting consequences. One of them is that I’m often forced to dry clothes a second time since they’re wrinkled by the time I get to them. The other is that when it comes time to actually prepare the clothes for our dresser drawers, I’m apathetic about folding them in a proper and organized way. Instead, I’m much more likely to want to hurry through the process, so I can get back to something, ANYTHING, that I enjoy more.

However, several times as I’ve been tempted to speed through the folding process, I’ve been forced to slow down. The reason for this is that I’ve been reminded that no longer are the clothes I’m folding only my own. Instead my wonderful husband’s clothes are also being prepared by my hasty hands and I’m conscious of the fact that one of the ways that I show him that I love him is through the time and energy that I spend doing things for him.  If I do less than my best, what is that saying about the quality of my care and concern for my beloved? (A quick disclaimer – my sweet husband would probably never criticize even if I left the clothes in a big heap. However, his graciousness is not an excuse for my carelessness. :-))

As I’ve been prompted to take more time doing the chore I’m not fond of, I’m reminded that I owe the same commitment of care to Christ. After all, how often do I go about doing things for Him in a half-hearted manner? Do I read my Bible just to get it done or because I’m delighting in the opportunity to spend time with Him? If He puts a special call on my heart to love someone who’s not my favorite, do I do so with grudging acceptance of the task, or do I look at it as a chance to display my love for Him and His love for others? Even the mundane things that God calls me to deserve my best, because it is Him that I’m doing it for.

I never thought that the laundry room would be a place that I could learn to love my husband more. I certainly never thought it would teach me about loving Christ. However, I’m grateful that God uses even the simple things to teach the profundity of Him.

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Growth

The Expected Exception

Most of have probably heard the phrase “Life’s not fair.” Generally it’s uttered when we want to levy an accusation of inequity – when we didn’t get something that we thought we rightly should. The reason that generations of mothers have probably uttered these words is that, just like so many things our mother tells us, it’s true. Life isn’t fair. And the quicker we accept this fact, the better off our attitudes will be.

What’s noteworthy to me, though, is that most people want life to be “fair” until fairness obtains them an outcome they don’t like. Let me give you an example. In my class, I currently don’t accept late assignments. When someone turns in an assignment late, and I tell them – “I’m sorry, but you won’t earn any credit for this”, they quickly want me to be “unfair” and accept their assignment contrary to the standards that everyone else has been held to. It’s understandable – after all, who wants to forgo credit on an assignment just because they missed the deadline? – but it certainly wouldn’t be “fair” to give out credit. It would be patently unfair to all the other students who had to turn the paper in by the due date in order to earn a grade.

It’s not just college students who think like this though. How many of us hope and pray that the “crazy” driver gets a ticket, until that crazy driver is us? When we’re talking to the police officer, we’re presenting our case for why we should be the exception to the rule. In fact, in our pride, we often expect it. (And we degradate the police if they are so ludicrous as to not conform to our new-found sense of “fairness.”) We expect to be the exception, but we sure hope everyone is consistent with the standards when it means someone else might benefit.

The wonderful thing about God, though, is that He didn’t give us what we deserve. In the penultimate case of unfairness, the perfect Christ died for sinners, so that sinners would have His perfection counted towards them. Maybe if we appreciated this a little more, we wouldn’t be so concerned with the misgivings that transpire on Earth. And maybe, in recognizing how grossly unfair this was, we’d be more than content to accept the outcome when we don’t receive the exception we’re expecting.

How do you deal with the fact that life’s unfair? 

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