Spring Cleaning

There was a rather lengthy season in my life where cleaning the house was an "as needed" activity.  Translation:  I cleaned when people were coming over.  What?  I lived in a house full of toddlers, I was working outside the home and, lets face it, I've never really been a clean freak.

Guests are coming!

On one ambitious Saturday I decided it was time to grow up and partake of this domestic weekend ritual.  I rounded up the kids and told them we were going to clean the house.  

Caleb's first questions--"Who's coming over?"  

When I explained that we were cleaning because the house was a mess, they stared at me,  expressionless.  I had literally blown their minds.  

photo cred

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The Tourists are Coming!

This is my second spring in this beach town and this year I'm noticing the preparation rituals all around me.  In a matter of weeks the tourists will arrive.  They'll travel from just over the hill and from across the globe, but when they get here they'll enter freshly painted store fronts and drive newly repaired roads and recline on freshly packed beaches.  

The younger, cynical (and hypocritical) Kelli shakes her head and bemoans the blatant "image management".  But the older, wiser Kelli recognizes the value in this ritual.  The healthiness, in fact, of engaging in seasons of "cleaning up."  This preparation is filled with anticipation and hope.  For a community dependent on tourism, much is riding on these next few months and we want to be found ready.   

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Jesus is Coming!

Today, Jesus used these pictures to remind of my need for a spiritual house cleaning.  In the busyness of life and the daily grind its easy to let things go.  

This isn't a renovation--there's been no house fire or flood or earthquake.  But my goal has always been to take a day each quarter to re-calibrate and its time.  

Time to pause and do something about the cracks in the pavement and the chips in the paint and the garbage strewn throughout.   To ask forgiveness and receive it. To repent.  To check the map and discern whether I'm on the right path.   To pray and allow myself to be filled with his strength. To listen and obey.  To be still.    

And to anticipate a day, yet to come, when Christ, WHO IS MY LIFE, returns.  

6 Then I heard again what sounded like the shout of a vast crowd or the roar of mighty ocean waves or the crash of loud thunder:
“Praise the Lord!
    For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.
7 Let us be glad and rejoice,
    and let us give honor to him.
For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb,
    and his bride has prepared herself.
8 She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear.”
    For the fine linen represents the good deeds of God’s holy people.

Revelation 19:6-8  (NLT)

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