i have finished the task i assigned myself this morning 36 minutes ahead of schedule. which means i can finally justify writing the post that has been steeping in my brain since last saturday. trust me, it's never good for something to be in there that long, lest it undergo gross distortions...
saturday. that was the day i worked (and chatted intermittently) for eleven hours at panera, during which time my darling husband cleaned our apartment.*
it was obviously quite thoughtful and selfless of him to do this, but what really struck me was how thoroughly he cleaned the place. we're talking dishes washed, carpets vacuumed, mirrors polished, bath tub and shower curtain scrubbed. and all clean enough to impress a wife with somewhat ridiculous standards of clean.**
so as i relaxed that evening, i thought of recent conversations about serving with our whole heart, as unto the Lord. no wonder it's pleasing to God when we put our full effort into something. i liked coming home to a clean house, but what was really touching was how hard darren worked to clean it.*** even though nothing we can do will ever fulfill what God deserves from us, even our imperfect attempts reflect a desire to please Him. i think it's that desire, not the work itself, that pleases Him most.
sunday. our pastor preached on giving, i.e. not holding back time, money, energy in our service to God, to the church and to others. i.e. serving with your whole heart and with all your trust in Him. it is rather easy to justify withholding these things, since they are in high demand in our day-to-day lives. but if we trust God and are willing to let these things go, He replenishes us and enables us to do more.
wednesday. in a mostly unrelated event, this morning i unconsciously applied to my wrists the same perfume i've been wearing for, oh, 8 years or so.**** folks seem to like it, but i can't really smell it anymore. for some reason, while i was studying in the library, i suddenly caught a whiff of it. it reminded of the two aforementioned events, each in their own way a sweet fragrance on a hectic day.
and it reminded me to thank God for all the ways He blesses us without holding back.
*the main reason i was at panera was that i find it very difficult to work at home when the apartment is so dirty. this is because, as some of you know and others may be shocked to learn, i suffer from a lethal combination of mild type-A tendencies and severe procrastination tendencies. in other words, i do my best, most obsessive cleaning when i should be focused on other, more time-sensitive tasks.
**when she actually does clean something
***and i don't exactly deserve that kind of service the way God does.
****Tuscany, that is. i remember loving it when i was 16, and my friend Katie wore it everyday.
sometimes sweet. sometimes sour.
2 comments:
Lovely post. I guess we're more able to give when our capacity to receive love also deepens. It's like the first letter of John says, we can love only because He loved us first (actually, the Greek text it's even stronger, God is "The first one that has loved"). One of the things they always emphasized in my Seminary (still can't believe that everything related to the Seminary is now written in the past tense...) was that celibacy can only be lived through a profound experience of God's love. We can only give as much as we are loved.
These thoughts, I like them.
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