It’s not easy to visibly rattle a couple of ultra-cool teenage boys or a steady husband whose typical demeanor is one step up from comatose, but I discovered I have the power to thoroughly terrorize my family. With nary a word, I alone can send my husband and sons scurrying to the remotest corners of the house to seek refuge.
Where do my secret powers come from? From deep within. From that secret place in the soul of women from which the overwhelming need for ORDER and ORGANIZATION periodically erupt like the unpredictable molten fury of Mt. Pinatubo . No man can stand before the raging fire of a hormonally charged woman on a mission to remove clutter from her house. I’m told it’s a look in the eye – a fierce determination, a fiery passion, a ferocious drive to clean the uncleanable, straighten the unstraightenable, organize the disorganized, to right domestic wrongs.
It hit me last weekend and I nearly scared my family half to death.
As I swooped into the den where my two sons were sitting at computers, I began sorting and filing and dusting and pitching and bagging and hauling away. My oldest son looked at me and said, “Mom – you REALLY scare me when you get like this.” “Stop… stop,” they pleaded, but I would not be stopped. “Do it later,” they begged, but I knew I was racing against my mysterious internal clock – the organizing fire in my belly has a definite but unpredictable time limit and there was much to be conquered before my clock stopped ticking.
They raced to gather up school reports, stray sneakers, dirty socks, and CDs before they fell before the relentless fury of my cleaning rage. Out went old catalogs and useless junk mail. To the basement went boxes of computer games. To the thrift store went clothes that had not seen the light of day in years. I was on a roll and it was truly a wonder to behold.
Of course, this volcanic eruption of cleaning mayhem eventually ran its course and sputtered to a halt. My family peeked out to survey what had survived my onslaught. They found order where chaos had once prevailed; they found delightfully barren desktops and countertops; they found me in the recliner, exhausted but satisfied. Oh, the bliss of a tidy, clutter-free home!
I have a single friend whose new condo is so sparsely decorated it looks like a page out of “Prison Beautiful.” She says she doesn’t want to have to fool with dusting or eventually moving lots of doo-dads, pictures and furniture. Bare bones is the phrase that comes to mind. I wouldn’t necessarily choose to decorate my home in such a spartan manner, but I do like to visit this friend’s house. There’s nothing out of place because there’s nothing to get out of place. It gives one a sense that at least this little piece of the universe is orderly.
I have decades of doo-dads to dust and maintain, with more stuff arriving on the scene all the time. Just getting my mail each day yields a fresh pile of paper to be organized and dealt with. So when I get the “eye of the tiger” and go on a clutter-bashing binge, I guess my family fears that I’m capable of throwing most anything out – the TV, major appliances, the clothes off their backs.
How thankful I am that when God “cleans house” in my life, there’s infinite, perfect wisdom in His ways. God doesn’t impulsively decide to create havoc and straighten up everything about my life in one day. He doesn’t swoop in with a maniacal glint in His eye and start loading huge chunks of my life into garbage bags to take to the recycling center.
On the contrary, if I let Him, He helps me get rid of the garbage in my life with great gentleness and love.
“Hey Mary Ann – think you need to bring that anger out of the closet and take it to the dump,” He’ll calmly say. “And while you’re at it, let’s get rid of that unforgiveness – it’s old and rotten.” Or He might pull out some of my “good” activities to look at. “These are okay, but I think it’s time to replace them with something new,” He says.
It’s all loving and orderly and controlled. No need to run for cover. No need to fear.
Is God relentless? Yes – relentlessly loving. He knows that His cleaning will make me more like Jesus … and He and I agree — being like Jesus is by far the best way to be.
” ‘ Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as while as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.’ ” – Isaiah1:18.