Lessons From the Laundry Recap

Just for future convenience, here are this week's posts all rolled into one:

This is the song that never ends. It just goes on and on, my friends... Okay, now that I've got that earworm stuck in your head (you can thank me later!), I'm pretty sure that song was really about housework! Unlike many other things I do, housework is the job never done, the job that never even creates true progress. Kids grow up and mature, and the issues and trials you deal with as parents evolve and change. Even though, in the short term, it can feel like you're making no headway, over time the kids turn into adults and your job is largely done. Learning a new skill like cake decorating or playing the piano takes time and effort, but if you work at it, eventually the learning phase is mostly behind you and you have a mastered skill to show for it. But dishes, vacuuming, laundry, ironing, mopping? These are repetitive tasks you do over and over again until you're too old and frail to do them, and even then, they still need to be done by someone. And it's not even as if you make a bed once, and then that one sits there as a monument to your achievement while you go one making other beds. You make that bed only to have it unmade so you can make it again tomorrow. You wash the dishes only to have the very same plate grabbed off the dish rack and covered in food again. You do a load of laundry and before it's even lost its fresh-from-the-dryer warmth, someone has pulled out an outfit and gone and played in the mud.

Now, to be fair, housework does change slightly over time. The day will come when doing the dishes no longer involves trying to get the germ-infested gunk out of the narrow crevices of a sippy cup. And dealing with spit-up stains eventually gives way to dealing with grass stains. But that doesn't offer much hope when you've still got dishes and stains.

I think this is why I find household tasks to be one of the most draining parts of managing the household, more so than parenting, if that's possible :) It's like rolling a heavy rock up a hill, only to have it come rolling back down so you can push it back up again. There's something about working hard at something, all the while knowing that it's all about to be undone, that can easily suck the joy right out of you.

So where is the hope in my housework? When I'm tempted to complain, lash out and/or despair about all the work that keeps getting undone, here are 4 thoughts that help put the joy back into cleaning.

Undone:

Housework reminds me of the futility of the things of this life. "Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun." (Eccl. 2:11) That's housework! Yet the Preacher is talking here about things that actually appear to be great achievements (see verses 4-9)! Just like the sweeping that is done only to be done again (parents of toddlers all nod), all of the achievements of man--even the great and noble strides in history--will one day come to an end. Do you know what your great-great-grandparents did on a daily basis? Do you even know their names? In a few generations, it may well be that no one remembers mine either, and even if they do, they probably won't know much at all about me. There is no hope to be had in the things of this life. They are passing away. WE are passing away, just like the grass of the fields: here one day and gone the next. Life is a vapour.

"Wait!" you say. "I thought you were going to help me find JOY in my housework! Now I'm just depressed." But hold on, because I'm getting there. We need to recognize the futility of our life and works, so we don't put our hope in them and make them our idols. If, every time you iron that same shirt AGAIN, you remind yourself that in and of ourselves, all earthly things and works are exactly like that--FUTILE!, it will help keep you from idolatry and push you to find your hope elsewhere. And then what?

Fully Done:

Housework reminds me to rejoice in the finished, completed, never-to-be-undone work of Christ in his perfect life, death and resurrection. The things of this life are futile, and without Christ my works are vain and worse than worthless-damning, even! Nothing I do in this life, whether it's keeping a clean house, or freeing a people Joan-of-Arc style, is enough to earn me God's approval, and without Christ, all my works will be burned up for eternity in the unquenchable fire of God's wrath... Gone and worse than gone. But Christ's daily works and life were so perfect, so sinless, that they were worthy of being on permanent display forever. He lived the only life worth preserving, and he lived it, not only so that he'd be able to take the punishment for my unworthy, futile life and keep me from the fires of hell, emptying the sink of dirty dishes, as it were--though that inspires much praise! He lived that perfect, finished, established life and then gives it to ME as my own record. When God looks at me, He doesn't see all those unfinished dirty dishes in the sink and moan about how He's going to have to wash them up AGAIN. He doesn't even just see an empty sink. When God looks at me, He sees a cupboard full of sparkling white washed-dried-and-neatly-stacked dishware gleaming from every shelf! Oh, if I can only think of this when I see the dirty dishes in my own sink, and instead of complaining, praise the glorious Lamb who gives me his righteousness!

Unseen:

Housework reminds me that even very temporary things can have yet-unseen permanent results. Why do I go on doing the housework, even though it seems so futile? Can you imagine what life would be like for my family if I just decided to quit--no more laundry, no more dishes, never iron another shirt again, and please don't clean that toilet! Sounds heavenly! Except that it would be a disaster. My children would have to wander around in filthy clothes, eating scraps from the garbage on fly-infested plates, while my husband and I tripped our way through the mass of toys, praying we didn't get one of those evil spear-headed Legos underfoot. Keeping the house tidy and well-organized serves my family in numerous ways that are admittedly often unnoticed and taken for granted, but who would want to live in a world without them? In the same way, many of the little things that we do in life, even those that go unnoticed and seem to us to have no visible results, can have a great impact on the lives of others around us, and much of this impact may be of more eternal value than we know. How we serve in the church when nobody sees us, prayers offered on behalf of those we'll never meet on this earth, our tone of voice when we see our 2-year-old dump the box of blocks all over the newly-vacuumed playroom floor... these things have impacts that we're often not aware of. Faithful service is not usually glamourous. Sometimes it involves scrubbing toilets and picking up trash--literally or figuratively. But the unseen effect it has on those around us (and on our own hearts) is well-worth the effort. "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Fully Seen:

Housework reminds me to hope in the future establishment of all things, my work included, in the new heavens and new earth. When I'm picking up a pile of blocks for the 15th time in a day, my soul cries out with the psalmist, "Establish the works of my hands!" (Psalm 90:17) I may not see it now, and I may not see it in 30 years, but the day is coming when that which is unseen will be revealed, and we will all see the permanent results of our labour. Though there will be things done for self that will be burned up, the work that we've done in the name of Christ and to his glory--even work we thought was of little lasting value, like washing the windows--is being built into the permanent temple of God, as an established display of His glory worked through simple, unworthy servants. And when He does away with death and establishes His dwelling with us for all eternity in a new earth, He will glorify Himself by giving us permanent, never-to-be-seen-as-futile-again joyful work in His kingdom. Yes, we are only given one life to life, and it will soon be past, but what is done for Christ WILL last--be it serving the poor or mopping the kitchen floor! "Therefore, my beloved brothers (and sisters), be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain!" (1 Corinthians 15:58)


Maybe it doesn't make ironing any more fun (I'm not sure that even adding a circus could do that!), but if I can use my futile, soon-to-be-redone housework to remind me of these hope-giving, joy-inspiring truths, that pile of ironing and that sink full of dishes will push me on to a lasting delight in God, what He's done for me in Christ, what He is doing with me in this life to bless my family and others around me, and what He will establish through me for His eternal glory. And that's of such lasting value that it's worth doing that laundry one more time just to grasp it!