In my previous life, I was a cleaning fanatic.
Does this mean I believe in reincarnation? Heavens, no! Not even close.
When I use the term “previous life”, this is what I’m talking about:
Previous life: Before Benny.
Current life: Anything after Benny!
This is how I think of my life. I have been pondering why I look at my life as before and after Benny, but then I realized that it is probably because my fight completely changed after Benny.
How I used to fight.
Here is a peek into my previous life and what I fought for on a weekly basis.
All laundry done in one single day, three times a week, including ironing. Wow! If this happens today, the laundry snob face is put on and no amount of scrubbing will get it off! I mean that snoot is turned up to the sky, girl!
I used to go over all the flower beds and the garden every week. I started a cycle every Monday at a certain flower bed, and worked my way through them all every week. Sometimes it took me a few days because I worked at this as I could, along with homeschooling. Needless to say, there weren’t many weeds, and I still think this is a genius plan to thwart weeds.
Every Tuesday I would give the kitchen floor a run-over with the mop and bucket. After all, the weekend may have brought some dirt!
At the beginning of each week I baked enough cookies to last the whole week. Then we ate cookies. Lots of cookies.
I committed to sewing one garment a week. For real I did this. I can’t even believe it now!
Every Thursday I washed all my windows! For heavens sake how amazing! I also cleaned the bathrooms and bedrooms on Thursdays, mowed the yard and weed-eated. The rest of the house was cleaned on Fridays, and we went grocery shopping as a family on Friday evenings.
Saturdays was my baking, cooking and vehicle cleaning day.
Before I had Benny, my life was pretty much peachy, organized, predictable fuzz. It was sleeping in if I wanted to, it may or may not have included lots of ice cream, chocolate, warm cuddly pajamas, shopping, eating out, etc. Now, don’t think that none of the above exist in my life today, because they do, albeit rarely. Except for sleeping in. Hitting the snooze button does not work with my Benny alarm clock!
What is my fight today?
Where do I even start? I still love me a clean house and gorgeous flower beds, and I try hard, but, let’s just say there are dust bunnies around, and the weeds seem to have a mind of their own these days!
But my fight has changed from perfection to alarming, organized as possible chaos! I need to remind myself daily to rest in Jesus, when on the inside I am the impatient bunny on “Zootopia!” When she is in front of the sloth, trying to get that plate number, her frustrations escalating to stormy heights, I can identify! That is so shameful to admit!
My fight is to stay content and not get weary in serving Benny…but sometimes after a long hard day…you guessed it…Weary! But when Daddy walks in, everything’s alright again!
My fight today is to stay on top of Benny’s needs. All day, every day. This is written in a few sentences, but it is a tough. full time job! I can’t think of a more exhausting, but honorable calling! Benny is a person, deserving respect same as any other human being. When he is hungry, he deserves to be fed. He can’t walk to the fridge or the snack cupboard and help himself. Although he has been known to scoot to the fridge, open the door and come with milk jug if we don’t dance to his tune quick enough. 🙂
Never in my wildest dreams could I have known that I could let my zealous cleaning frenzies go and be okay with it. I have more important things to do than to constantly scrub floors, walls and windows these days. I have a Benny to attend to. It has taught me so much! One of my daughters commented that I am easier to live with this way! Um…thank you?
What is your fight? We all have our daily familiar that is our personal walk and way, but something came along that completely rocked our world and changed our fight. I would love to hear your testimony of how your life changed because of it! If you aren’t comfortable sharing here, send me an email. We may be tired, physically and emotionally drained, but we are in this together. Pause, breathe, cry if we must, but keep on going!
Let us not grow weary of doing good. For in due season we will reap if we do not give up.
Galations 6:9
