My husband and I did something radical the other day. We cleaned the house.
Mind you, we're not slobs. You can actually walk through our house and not trip over
dust balls or be chased down by hungry spiders. But anywhere there's a countertop, there's
a mess. I blame it on magnetism.
The countertops attract unread magazines, school papers, unanswered mail, toys in need
of glue, lost pencils, last year's mending, important notices from the government, lost
shopping lists, unfinished craft projects, last Christmas' fruit cake and lost reminders
to get the house cleaned.
The magnetic pull is amazing. No matter how much we heap on top of what's already on
top, the countertops still draw more junk. I can be casually wandering through the kitchen
with an armload of junk mail, fully expecting to dump it into the garbage can, and
swi-i-ip! It's sucked right onto the top of the pile.
Day by day the mass accumulates. Higher and higher. The children stay farther and
farther away, keeping a wary eye out for possible avalanches.
But the other day ''It'' happened. Company was coming. I vacuumed and washed and made
the guest bed and decided to warn the company to stay away from certain areas of the
house. That, however, wasn't enough for Ralph. He cleaned off the countertops.
The next morning, our daughter stared at the empty countertops and gasped.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Daddy cleaned it," I answered.
"Really, what happened?"
"Look," I said, "he found the cookie jar!"
"I'm not sure I'm feeling good," said our son. "I don't see the things
I'm supposed to see here. I'm hallucinating."
I smiled and enjoyed the view of the clean countertops. I knew they wouldn't stay empty
long.
It reminded me of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Daily I clutter up my life with
garbage -- worldly junk as opposed to heavenly treasures -- and daily the heap grows
higher and higher until I'm in danger of being crushed by an avalanche. When I reconcile
myself with God, He sweeps the mountain away. For a time, my inner countertops remain
clean. The more I pray and spend time reading God's Word -- filling myself with treasures
-- the less room there is for garbage.
It took company coming to get us to clean our house. If I could remember that Jesus is
always visiting, perhaps I'd get around to cleaning out my soul more often.
"Mom, who really did this?" my daughter asked, still staring at the
countertops.
"God cleaned it," I answered. "It was a miracle."
