Question about my house

[Coreopisis]

I had my home blessed and enthroned. I ask God always to dwell therein with his angels and saints as I feel my home is his home.

I’ve been so busy lately my house is a disaster. It is really messy and some rooms are dirty. I am going to try to clean it this weekend, but as I said there is just so much going on.

I am worried that I am insulting God. Am I dishonoring God by having such a messy house lately? Do you think this matters to Him?

 

[Sr_Sally]

God judges our intentions. You have been busy about work and other good actions I assume. You are not jepordizing the health of your family or friends with filth or sitting watching TV and throwing pizza crusts in the corner (I hope!)

Clean yuo house as best you can this weekend and then try to take 15 minutes each evening to straighten up behind yourself. It sounds like you live alone, so that shouldn’t be too hard.

God is not as worried about the cleanliness of your house as He is about the state of your soul, but it is nicer to live in a clean house.

 

[Coreopisis]

God judges our intentions. You have been busy about work and other good actions I assume. You are not jepordizing the health of your family or friends with filth or sitting watching TV and throwing pizza crusts in the corner (I hope!)

Clean yuo house as best you can this weekend and then try to take 15 minutes each evening to straighten up behind yourself. It sounds like you live alone, so that shouldn’t be too hard.

God is not as worried about the cleanliness of your house as He is about the state of your soul, but it is nicer to live in a clean house.

Yes I have been busy. I am a single mother and my son has tutoring 3 nights a week and religion class one night a week. So I work full time and then have to run him all over the city for various appointments.

There is no food on the floor. Just mail and some laundry. Plus the Ferret’s litterbox needs to be cleaned out and I really need to scrub the bathroom as there is some water stains forming in the shower that I hate, I suppose it could be much much much worse. It could use a good vacuum too.

I will try to clean it up this weekend, I just felt guilty.

 

[wcknight]

Thank God, He does not judge us by the tidiness of our homes.

We would have been condemned ages ago. The wife and I are pack rats. We colllect and save everything for fear of tossing somthing out tat we may need down the road. We have a family reunion every year just to force ourselves to clean up.

We both work full time and up until last year, had kids (3) at home - now off to college or moved out. Plus we volunteer for all kinds of stuff, PTA, church, knights., no good excuse, but being neat and tidy is just not a top priority for us.

 

[CB_Catholic]

I used to drive my family nuts with cleaning. I could not stand a messy house and on my days off I would clean and yell at them and make life miserable, esp. my husband who is a pack rat. Now I realize what a bad example I was. My son is an obsessive cleaner and neat freak, and his poor wife had to break him of a lot of that, although he is still very clean and organized. My daughter is a SAHM who cleans up her house at the end of the day and doesn’t worry about it. You trip over the kid’s mess during the day.

I have learned not to clean so much. The older I get, the less dirt I see. I have found better things to do and am much happier. I simply cannot work and have a spotless house, and I don’t try any more. I want my family and friends to someday remember me as a kind and loving person, not for having a clean house. And I think that is what God would prefer. Now living in filth and endangering your family’s health is another thing. But a little dust and disorder never hurt anybody. Just clean it up when you can. Your son is more important.

 

[puzzleannie]

you have to come on over and join us in the messy house thread, real therapy (and you will find so many people doing even worse than you are).

no you are not dishonoring God, but I sometimes think we are dishonoring ourselves when we don’t maintain our homes, just as when we do not maintain our bodies. like everything else that is a constant struggle with many failures, we keep plugging away, realize we can do nothing under our own strength, and through the struggle come to rely more and more on God and his strength.

since adopting the Benedictine spirituality with its emphasis on hospitality, I have come to regard housework in that light. just as the monks in charge of the kitchen care for the things and the food as sacred objects, I try to regard housework in that light (a real struggle, to be sure).

 

[Coreopisis]

I used to drive my family nuts with cleaning. I could not stand a messy house and on my days off I would clean and yell at them and make life miserable, esp. my husband who is a pack rat. Now I realize what a bad example I was. My son is an obsessive cleaner and neat freak, and his poor wife had to break him of a lot of that, although he is still very clean and organized. My daughter is a SAHM who cleans up her house at the end of the day and doesn’t worry about it. You trip over the kid’s mess during the day.

I have learned not to clean so much. The older I get, the less dirt I see. I have found better things to do and am much happier. I simply cannot work and have a spotless house, and I don’t try any more. I want my family and friends to someday remember me as a kind and loving person, not for having a clean house. And I think that is what God would prefer. Now living in filth and endangering your family’s health is another thing. But a little dust and disorder never hurt anybody. Just clean it up when you can. Your son is more important.

Wow this sounds so familiar. My mom was also what we called a ‘clean freak’ and it was miserable. As a result I ended up with cleaning anxiety when my son was an infant that took a few years ot get over, and my brothers both took on the ‘clean freak’ ways. My brother will call me sometimes on a Saturday upset because he can’t relax until everything is spotless na dhere he has been working all week and he is sick with a fever and yet he has to get up and clean. Horrible. So I swayed in this direction of being more reasonable. How my mom always says “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” and now I am hoping that this is not true because of the house blessing thing.

Is there any truth to the “cleanliness is next to Godliness” phrase?

 

[water]

There is no food on the floor. Just mail and some laundry.

Do you have a paper shredder? I can tell you that at some point in my life, I had bunch of mails that I collected over the year. The shredder is very helpful.

I am living all by myself and I am a guy, and I am trying to keep my house neat and organized but it is not easy thing to do. However, what motivates me to do it is to please God in doing little things.

Yes, to God, this little thing does not mean much, but because it is not an easy thing for us to do – when we do it because we love Him, He sees this little thing Big.

For above reason, I make my bed every morning before going to work – this was an impossible thing for me to do in the past.

Furthermore, whatever we do, we can relate to the relationship between God and us. When folding a blanket or cleaning up the house, one can pray to God and ask Him to clean up His soul and make it a place for the dwelling of the Holy Spirit.

 

[Coreopisis]

Do you have a paper shredder? I can tell you that at some point in my life, I had bunch of mails that I collected over the year. The shredder is very helpful.

I am living all by myself and I am a guy, and I am trying to keep my house neat and organized but it is not easy thing to do. However, what motivates me to do it is to please God in doing little things.

Yes, to God, this little thing does not mean much, but because it is not an easy thing for us to do – when we do it because we love Him, He sees this little thing Big.

For above reason, I make my bed every morning before going to work – this was an impossible thing for me to do in the past.

Furthermore, whatever we do, we can relate to the relationship between God and us. When folding a blanket or cleaning up the house, one can pray to God and ask Him to clean up His soul and make it a place for the dwelling of the Holy Spirit.

This is all excellent advice but I still have to force myself to do it. I really dislike cleaning and can always find a million other things to do. I will tell yesterday I listened to the whole Gregorian chant CD and cleaned my kitchen. I got my kitchen spotless yesterday so that is good. My living room is picked up but it needs to be dusted and vacuumed. I also need to clean the bathroom but I did get the toilet cleaned. I had to ask Jesus and my Guardian angel to keep me going the whole time. I have NO motivation to do it and this time of year with the shorter days my motivation is even less than normal if that is possible.

I wish I could understand why I dislike it so much.

 

[puzzleannie]

I wish I could understand why I dislike it so much.

um because it is never ending
because it is nearly impossible, if anyone but you lives there, to have the entire house clean at one time
because you can clean in the morning, and by the time somebody else gets home to appreciate it, the mess is back, and somebody thinks you have done nothing all day
because it sometimes feels like immense effort for very little visible result (like who is going to know you cleaned the spare room closet).

 

[Coreopisis]

um because it is never ending
because it is nearly impossible, if anyone but you lives there, to have the entire house clean at one time
because you can clean in the morning, and by the time somebody else gets home to appreciate it, the mess is back, and somebody thinks you have done nothing all day
because it sometimes feels like immense effort for very little visible result (like who is going to know you cleaned the spare room closet).

Hmmmm could it be that you have pondered this before? This is all true. I live with my son, and our two birds and two Ferrets that was all. Between me and my son the work is never done plus my son is always following behind me messing up what I clean. it is very frustrating. Plus after a long day at work, a long commute and so forth I just don’t want to do anything but relax and then go to bed.

 

[PhilotheaZ]

There’s a great little website flylady.com/ that helps make housekeeping manageable for people who hate it. Give it a try!