Wife Like Me

This morning all four of us are sick. I have a sore throat, Colin has a big sinus headache, Degen and Maggie have runny noses. Maggie seems to be teething, too, and she had a bout of inconsolable crying today that got me to call my mom to find out whether I should take her to the doctor. I thought about staying home from Church today, but both Colin and I are teaching. So we're skipping the first hour, then Colin is going to second hour to teach his class while I stay home with the kids, then he'll come back and we'll trade off.

My lesson for the Beehives today is about the home environment. The idea is to teach them that keeping your home orderly and clean invites the Spirit to be in your home and that women staying home to raise children and keep their homes beautiful and clean is honorable work that God is pleased with. It's not mere drudgery and by having a cheerful attitude about our work we can bless our families.

I remember listening to this lesson when I was in Young Women as a young woman and I vividly recall the teacher ask us how we would feel if the Savior came to visit us at home that day without warning. Of course my room was a wreck and I believe I remember having had a fight with my mother that week about the subject of the cleanliness of my room (not an uncommon topic of discussion). It went something like: Mom: "You must keep your room clean. I'm sick of seeing this mess!" Me: "Well, then I'll close the door so you don't have to see it! It's my room and you shouldn't be in there anyway. I like it this way." Mom: "It's not your room. It's my room because it's my house. I let you use that room. As long as you live in this house, you'll keep your room clean!" You can probably imagine how it went from there. Eventually I would agree to clean it if she would help me. Of course one of my big problems with keeping my room clean was that I'd let it go until it was horrifying, then get overwhelmed and let it get even worse, then one weekend when I'd have nothing else to do and be sick of it I'd clean like crazy till it was "perfect." So, my mom would sit there with me, going through each dresser drawer and under my bed and in my closet until, hours later, we were satisfied or too exhausted to continue. My poor mother is so patient. I realize what a saint she is now that I'm older and have a house of my own to try to keep clean.

Anyway, back to young Bethany's beehive class. My teacher asked us if our homes were in a state to comfortably receive the Savior, or if we'd be embarrassed. I knew I would be embarrassed by my room and wanted to improve. It's taken me a lot of effort since then to improve, but I believe I have improved. I feel like my home is my stewardship, that I've been very blessed to be allowed to have a nice home with plenty of room and lots of stuff to mess it up with. I'm still not very good at cleaning or decorating or any of those skills I've been working on, but I'm getting better at it all the time.

As I've thought about this lesson I'm giving today, I realize that if the Savior were to come to my home today, He would see toys and clothes on the floor, books in disarray in the basement, a messy office, and dishes on the table from last night's dinner. But He would also know how much effort I've put in to getting it that good! I ran a full dishwasher last night, most of the laundry is clean and folded, the kids' bedroom and the guest room are picked up, there are clean towels and toilets in the bathroom. He would know and I would know that it's better and that I'm trying to be better still.

I had a couple of paradigm shifts that really helped me in my quest to improve myself in this way. One, I recognized that I don't have to work nearly as hard as my ancestors did to keep a clean, orderly house. I have a vacuum, dishwasher, clothes washer, dryer, and many other conveniences that make it hundreds of times faster to do what needs to be done. So, I earned to be grateful for the few tasks I have to do comparatively. Two, I found a web page called flylady.net which teaches that you don't have to do everything perfectly all at once to make your home a nice place to live. Just a few minutes a day working on the maintenance frees up time and psychological space to work on the time-consuming stuff that you never get to otherwise. It also taught me to just do a little something that will show me immediate results when I'm overwhelmed, and that helps motivate me to tackle more. And, I discovered that it's easier to do a little cleaning often (even when it's not very dirty!) than to do a lot of cleaning all at once when it's really dirty. It may seem obvious to you, but it was news to me! (Sorry Mom, I know you tried to tell me…) When my home is clean and orderly and when I'm cheerful about the work I'm able to do it's easier to feel the Spirit. It's also easier for me to serve others because I'm more worried about people than about all the things I need to do at home. I can think more clearly in orderly places, which is why the lesson brings up how clean the temple always is. Trying new things isn't really frightening when my home is in order, because there's space for one more thing on my plate. Making new friends is easier because I'm not embarrassed to have them over to my house on the spur of the moment when my house is clean (or at least closer to clean).

God likes things clean. He likes His house to be clean, His people to be clean, and His peoples' houses to be clean. It occurs to me that learning to clean your house can help you learn to become clean internally–to repent. We don't have to be perfect on our own all at once. Christ will sit with us in our room, just like my mom, and go through each drawer and under the bed and through the boxes in the closet. He'll help us get rid of the sweaters that don't fit anymore and the empty drinking-straw wrappers that somehow got in with the shoes. He'll teach us how to wash our sheets and maybe even paint the walls our favorite color. He never gets sick of helping us and he won't give up on us until it's done, if we're willing to keep working with him. He doesn't make us do it alone, but he insists that we do it if we are going to live in his Kingdom. Thanks for listening while I wrote myself through what this lesson means to me. I think it'll help me teach my sweet Beehives better.

Tags: beehives, clean, environment, Family, gratitude, help, lesson, Marriage, order, Savior, Spirit, women, young