Diary Of A Sick Day & A Messy House/Heart

I had to take a sick day on Monday.  There was no point in trying to push through the household chores that needed my attention. I simply needed to park myself on the couch for the majority of the day.  Hey I've earned it... my house was clean at the end of the week... Better to just take it easy and rest and get healthy right?
At least I was joined by a lovely little six year old and her stuffy nose.


We enjoyed a day of PBS with a few naps along the way brought on by the cold meds. I had to settle for night time cough syrup as the daytime stuff actually made the coughing worse.


Sadly one of the things I was looking forward to with our"sick day" was reading together, but reading allowed is hard when your hacking up your lungs.  My daughter did take advantage of the time to hone in on her Lego skills. She also enjoyed bringing out truck loads of stuffed animals and dolls (seriously our house is overcome) into the living room.

Some people may find taking a sick day... especially on a rainy day in Fl... to be cozy.  It is in part I guess.  But once the kids arrive home from school the sick day is over. OVER. It's back to the regular grind of nagging them to finish homework and such and such.  Also I find while you are sitting there resting the house still gets dirty. 

Dishes and laundry still keep piling up... perhaps even quicker then usual.
And then there the dog hair... yuck!
Seriously... how much dog hair can two small dogs lose?? You think the house hadn't been swept in a month.... it was just one sick day!!!  Four kids also contribute to dusty, sandy, grimy floors.


I do a lot of cleaning yet my house is far from perfect. It's what people graciously call "lived in" as clutter and paper finds it's home on any flat surface.  It becomes really obvious just how cluttered the house can be when I slow down for a "sick day" or even just a "lazy day" or a "procrastination day" or whatever. Bleh. 
After all really how good can a shelf full of board games possibly look?  How pristine can scuffed and dinged up furniture, fingerprinted walls, be.? Certainly not worthy of Martha Stewart.  Then there's the piles of graded school work, and the mounds of coloring books, the Lego's, the pile of left over Sunday School materials under the desk, the coupons, and so on and so on. I can't forget the organizers that are supposed to help but mostly just add to the clutter. The cherry on top is the junk mail. Band directors get a ton of junk mail. My husband's mountain of music and catalogs might just be record breaking!  

Oh and who can forget the stuffed animals. 

The messes don't stop. But I'm constantly nearly always cleaning (sigh).   Perhaps when I do slow down the gratification of getting the work "done enough" wears off and I see just how messy it is and how quickly new messes pile up. I dunno. 

Our sinful condition is the same.  The more we try to "clean-up" our own sinful hearts, the more we realize just how grimy and scummy they are. On the outer surface things might look spic-n-span. Perhaps we experience a pretty decent high of gratification as we look at our virtuous works and accomplishments.  
But when we slow down and really examine ourselves that all fades away as we allow ourselves even a quick look at just how bad it is before we shut the door to the junk room....our darkest parts.   Our Old Adam keeps coming up for air trying pull us back into the tar and feathers of our sinful human condition.  Despite our best efforts we can not by our own strength make ourselves clean... not even a little bit. We are dust in our own smut. Dead dust that can't do a thing to make ourselves decent before God Almighty.  

God has compassion on those buried in their own mess.  He comes down into them. Washes us clean with the blood of the Lamb, His Son.  The cost is high, yet out of love He pays it.  He takes our sinful flesh and cleans it,  So that what He sees is clean righteousness.  He see the perfect works of His pure and holy Son.  In Christ we are brought from death to life, freely given the forgiveness of our sins, and set free.

What a joy it is to know that on the last day I won't be judged on the condition of my house, or how many "sick days" I took. Or anything that I did or didn't do. I'm judged in Christ. His work is credited to me and all who call him Savior.

So in peace I  find blessing and joy in keeping house for my family and making a home for them.  In sickness and in health we are privileged to serve each other sharing in the riches of a truly compassionate God.