31 Days to a Cleaner Home-Day 1: Why Clean?

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Every time she finds a minute, that's the time when they begin it!

Cinderelly, Cinderelly

Night and day it's Cinderelly

"Make the fire, fix-a breakfast, wash the dishes, do the mopping..."

"And the sweeping and the dusting!" They always keep her hopping!

She go around in circles, till she's very, very dizzy

Still, they holler! Keep a-busy Cinderelly!

Do you ever feel like that? 

I know I do! 

Let's be honest here being a wife, mother, homemaker can be exhausting.

Little loves who have needs and cannot do for themselves yet.

The day in and day out of the mundane.

Daily tasks that often go unnoticed yet must be done or 

our homes become a place of disorder and chaos.

I'll be completely honest with you. I struggle with this.

I struggle with putting my heart into cleaning my home.

But God has been teaching me a few things.

Disorder and chaos are not His thing my friend. (1 Cor. 14:33)

He doesn't like it when we feel like we've lost complete control of our domains.

It brings so much stress and frustration to our lives that then affect everyone else in our homes. Ick. Ick. Ick. You know the feeling I'm talking about right?

We are also commanded to do EVERYTHING as if we were doing it to directly serve God without whining or complaining. {OUCH} 

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This house that I live in is not my forever home. I will someday go to live in a mansion in heaven but for now this is my home and I must do all I can to care for it. But no matter what house I live in it all belongs to God and I need to care for it as if I were caring for someone else's house. And while I don't always feel like doing it with my whole heart I am serving God and my family so I need to do it as unto the Lord (Col. 3:23)

So let's do it! Let's do this together. Let's encourage each other and spur one another on to peace filled homes with order and gladness!

Here are the things I want us to do today:

1. Take some time to write out why you want a clean house.
   You need to have a purpose. A goal. A real defined reason for cleaning to help you keep going even when you don't feel like it.  So take some time to write out a mission statement. Write it out. Be specific. Make it you. Got it? Good.
   
2. Now make it pretty! 
   Take that mission statement and dress it up a little. I have mine framed in my kitchen to remind me why I take the time and energy to clean. It doesn't have to take you long. Use some scrap papers or doodle, find a back ground design on the internet and in paint type out your mission statement over top. I don't want this to be something that you feel like it has to be perfect or take you a lot of time. Make it you. Make it something that is going to encourage you to keep going.
   
3. Set up a donation station.
   Get a bag or a box. Set it in a spot in your home where any time you come across something you don't use, don't need, don't love, or just doesn't bring life to you and your home it can go straight into the donation station. I recommend it being somewhere that if you have kids they won't see it much or at all.
   
4. 5 minutes!
   I want you to set a timer for 5 minutes. Don't look at it as overwhelming. Just beat the clock. Get as much done as you can in those 5 minutes. When the timer beeps move to the next room. For me I can quickly grab all of the garbage, dishes, and other STUFF that doesn't belong in that room out in 5 minutes and the room already looks much better. Put on some great uplifting-get-you-moving music and Ready Set GO!