Thank God for Dirty Laundry

gratitude for our domains

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

When there’s no getting to the bottom of my children’s argument, when he says this and she says that, when all my cross-examinations can’t discover who started the fight that ended in screaming and shoving and name-calling, thank God for dirty laundry. 

I can gather all the bedroom hampers and dump them out on the wooden floors. I can sort whites with whites and towels with towels. I can load each pile into a basket and carry them out to the washing machine, where I push some buttons and dump in some soap and voilà! Clean laundry. Thank God for dirty laundry to sort. 

When my friends’ troubles seem too big for me to make better, when all their choices seem to lead to undesirable ends, when I don’t know what they ought to do or how they’ll get through this, thank God for unmade beds. 

Thank God for those hundred-count bedsheets that tuck securely beneath the mattress so that I can pull them taut so not a wrinkle shows. Or I can pull off those dirty sheets and start afresh with clean sheets: from the fitted sheet to the pillowcases. And when finished, I’ll know I’ve left the bed better than when I found it. Thank God for beds to make. 

When the government is in a mess and I don’t know who to listen to or who to trust, when the news is all bad and I’m so uncertain of people’s motives that I hardly know what is true, thank God for smudged windows. 

With my Windex and yesterday’s newspaper and a little elbow grease, I can rub those fingerprints right off each pane. I can dust the sills and wipe away the cobwebs until those windows are a picture of clarity. Then in the mornings and evenings when the sun tends to highlight any imperfections, I can look straight through them at the pink-streaked skies. Thank God for dirty windows to clean. 

When I can’t understand why I’m so upset about a fairly simple thing, when I’m fuming about something that other people seem able to handle quite calmly, thank God for trash cans to empty. 

Thank God that I have the strength and the ability to lift the bags right out of their bins and haul them into the alley where the trash cans keep the smell away from the house until the trash trucks come. I can hose down the interior of the household bins before putting clean bags inside. And just like that, all the trash has left the house. Thank God for trash to take out. 

When my heart hurts too much for the sorrows it hears on the news, when I can’t bear to hear my children’s woes that they tell me after school, when relationships have been severed and I can’t even begin to understand how they’ll get repaired, thank God for meals to make. 

I can open my fridge and pull out the butter and milk and yeast. I can throw all the ingredients into my bread maker, and four hours later, the house will be filled with the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread. Or I can grab all the leftovers and throw them in a broth with mirepoix and garlic and thyme from the garden and serve it up in deep bowls to my hungry family. I can sit contentedly and watch them eat what I made and know that, afterward, they will be full. Thank God for meals to make. 

All these chores I can do while talking to the one who can sort out the children’s arguments and who knows the solution to my friends’ troubles, who sees through the government’s agenda and knows how to take out my emotional garbage. He gives eternal food to the hungry and hurting. He has given me the ability and strength to rule this little domain of mine. Thus, I will trust him to rule his.