Fall Cleaning...

I'm partial to fall cleaning over spring cleaning.
I suppose I could do both.
But I don't.
I hate to clean.
Fall is the time I like to clean under sinks...
behind dressers...
under beds...
Mostly because I'm in the house all winter and I don't want to be in a dirty house all winter.
Makes sense, no?
This year I cleaned my blinds...
I won't tell you the last time that happened.
Because I can't.
It never has.
Don't tell anyone.
It never occurred to me honestly...
Yes, I saw the dust on occasion but I looked away and it disappeared out of sight.
Easy peasy.
Until my white blinds took on a mushroom color...
It was time.
FINE!
So I cleaned them...inch by inch...
Blind by blind...
I hear you can take them down and dunk them in a bathtub but I didn't.
I painstakingly cleaned each one.
First with a dust rag,
Then with a Lysol wet wipe,
Then with a damp cloth.
They're clean.
I wish I could say I was done, but today I cleaned under my kitchen sink...
Woah.
The nasty that was living under there!
I do occasionally clean under the sink but I hadn't in several months and it was, well...
dirty.
It's fall, though, so I didn't just clean, I fall cleaned.
I not only scrubbed, I replaced the shelf paper.
It's sparkling new!
I won't be embarrassed when someone wants to throw something in the garbage under my sink now!
"Go ahead, it's under the sink" I'll say with a wave of my hand,
Instead of "Here, let me throw that away for you" as I barely open the cupboard to hide it's filth and toss it blindly into the trash.
Which could be why it got even dirtier under there...
The miss factor.
When you don't want to see, you miss your target and dirt gets flung all over!

Which made me think...
Of times I've tried to hide things from God...
Secret sin that I try to cover up, usually making a bigger mess of things...
Which is silly...
God sees everything.
It's a lot of work to clean...first to admit it's time to tackle it,
And then to do the painstaking work of making things shine again...
To clean a house is one thing but to clean up my life, my attitudes, my thoughts, my actions...
Especially the corners of my heart.
That's hard work.
But so worthwhile...
It feels good to set things straight and shiny.
And the rewards are everlasting.
I pray that I will not let my life get as dirty as my blinds...!

1 John 1:6-7
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.