When I was a child living with my parents, my room was constantly messy, and it felt fine. Orderlyness was not even on my agenda. My older sister's room, Alex, was spotlessly clean. Actually, Mum told me that the reason she stopped us co-sharing rooms was because at all of 5 years of age, my sister had decided that I was "too messy" to live with. She drew on the carpet (or such like) a line out of chalk. And I was not allowed to cross this line. Her territory must not be impinged upon. And so, at age 3, I was labelled "the messy child". Who knows whether I kept this up out of low expectations from my family or out of actual innate uncleanliness, but when I left home, I was much the same. Until marriage.
Somewhere in our marriage, I realised that there was now no clean room to go into. Unless, of course, I cleaned it first. So the understanding that I had to be a cleaner person dawned on me.
I now think that I probably spend the majority of my waking hours cleaning. It becomes a habit. Taking things from one room to another till things are generally where they belong. Sort of an all-day-clean routine. Things are always being wiped or picked up or moved or scrubbed. It's a necessity and there's no limit to what you can do.
And that's where the problem lies. Soon, you can not only clean, but also organise, then organise the organised things, and then catalogue the organised things, then systematically file through those things at certain points in the year to re-cul the organised things.
It's never ending and tiring and addictive. And when I think of cleaning it always reminds me of God's wise words about "such things under the sun", they are all a "chasing after the wind."
Things will break. Things will continue to get dirty.
And all the while, my arms will continue in a flurry of movement until the Lord returns and true rest appears.
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