Sometimes my mind is as cluttered as my house.
After a long week, the laundry piled high on the table tells the tale of what we’ve been up to. Who wore what when. There are many stains.
I pass that pile every night on the way to my bedroom and promise myself I will pick it up, wash it, sort it, fold it tomorrow. But the choice is often between cleaning and kids. And by the time the kids go down, I am ready to go down as well. But more likely I long for some alone time. To decompress. To breathe. To hide from that laundry behind a movie or a book or in a hot bath.
So the pile grows.
I begin to resent it. It is a reminder of the many things I have not managed to do by week’s end. But, I know that the road to rest lies through that pile. Because by Sunday night I will not be ready to face the week if that laundry is still staring at me.
So, tonight, after scrubbing down small bodies, brushing tangled hair and ushering little feet into pajama pants, I tie back my hair and head toward the layers leftover from a couple of weeks.
I pile them on the bed. Now there can be no rest until they are put away. Literally. So I begin.
Slowly, in time to the music that washes over me from the background, I pick up piece after piece of a difficult week. I look at each, shake it out, and sort through it. Some needs to be washed. Some needs to be folded. Some I haven’t seen in a long time and am grateful to have found again.
I bend and fold and slowly clear a path through my thoughts. The warm yellow lamp keeps me company. I let the same song play over. and over. and over. Folding, sifting, sorting, I soothe the chaos in my head.
I make space for someone else’s thoughts. I move mine out of the way. We work together.
I remember a meeting of unexpected company and friendship. A spur of the moment coat purchased in Kyiv. And the shoe that’s been missing for two Sundays and whose jaunt MIA has caused more tantrums than I care to think about. I can’t wait to reunite it with Micah tomorrow.
The pants that sat through a painful conversation look harmless enough. I will wash them. And we will start fresh.
My bed surfaces. Peace nudges in. And my mind is ready for tomorrow. To be filled anew with promises that I will try to pile up instead of the laundry this week.
Because,
Even when the rain falls
Even when the flood starts rising
Even when the storm comes
I am washed by the water – Needtobreathe
I have two bins that need folding right now, and I need the therapy that comes from folding laundry. Such an eloquent post for a Saturday night.
Oh, how I’m often in the same boat in this laundry department. Piling it on the bed, so that it must be accomplished. Letting it pile, often for 2 weeks at a time, at the FOOT of the bed. Or better yet in laundry baskets on the floor. Then, in one (very long, tiresome, contemplative) swoop I fold and put away. Repeat 3-4 times a month. :) Wash and start anew, over and over.
Praise God we have a Savior who washes us anew. A Savior who, with one act of obedience, is able to wash us over and over. A Savior who doesn’t pile us on the bed, let us wrinkle, or sit in our sin. A Savior whose precious blood provides that extra rinse cycle to the repentant heart.
I absolutely love that song.
Wow, LeAnna, just wow. Your comment is a beautiful mini-post. Thank you so much for enlarging on the imagery. Thank you.
i love the idea of pausing to reflect on the week in the sorting of laundry… and digging deeper than the actual event that happened when the item was worn. how i felt. how i still feel. what i need to do with that.
i think i need to start doing that.
and by the time i get “home” late tomorrow night, i will have much laundry that needs to get done some time in this very full week of mine. and i know my heart is full of an even greater pile of things that need to be sorted through, processed, and given over to the One who can redeem them.
and on a completely different note… oh how i miss my ausi back in SA!
I’ve been struggling to get out from under my laundry pile this week, too. But this past weekend was worth it. *grin* I always loved how my mentor taught me to pray for those I love whose clothes I am folding. It was a whole new take on the “putting on the armor of God” passage.
Ooo, I like that! What a great mental image – I will try to use it to be inspired to keep better on top of my pile!
Great post! I totally need someone to make my laundry poetic. Maybe now I’ll look at it differently.
Ha! Yea, a mama’s gotta do whatever she can to power through the laundry!
Laundry is on my to do lists twice this week…how crummy is that? Great post!
A. My husband listens to that song all the time.
B. How can laundry be so cathartic? Amazing, isn’t it?
Thank you for making the normal, interesting…again.
So beautifully put! I am constantly finding myself in the same place, and it’s nice to know I’m not the only one.