It was an amazing weekend filled
with amazing women, amazing speakers, and amazing sessions. To give you a better feel… it was… well…
amazing. The “Hearts at Home” conference
had wrapped up and I was filled to the brim.
The Lord had certainly shown up as thousands of moms converged on the
Rochester Civic Center for 24 hours of worship, fellowship, eating, chatting, learning,
shopping and growing. We heard
incredible words of encouragement from Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, we laughed
until we had tears streaming down our faces from listening to a hysterical improv
trio. The Lord was blessing us in
immeasurable ways, allowing us to be filled with His Glory!
The following week as I was looking
back on this high experience I had so many ideas and thoughts floating in my
head that I didn’t know how to begin to process. Being a note taker I thought that my first
line of duty would be to spend some time reading through and re-copying my
notes, in fun colors and nicer handwriting for easy access of future reference
of course! Side note on that… As I’m
writing this, I went to go grab my notes to look them over, only to realize
that I really have NO CLUE where I put them.
Awesome. Anyways. I had re-written my notes and had about 4,936
things that I was going to put into action as a Christ-follower, a wife, a
mother, a Children’s Ministry worker, a friend, and as a homemaker. I had gone to sessions about relationships
with close friends, listened to speakers talk about organization and learning
to “FLY” (Finally Love Yourself), watched as women spoke of heartache and past
regrets turned to an intense desire to impress a love for God on their
children’s hearts. I was ready to hit
it, head on! Oh wait… I should probably
pray about this. I have a tendency to
bite off a lot to chew, so I figured I should seek the Father’s guidance on
this one. So I sat before Him with these
words, “Lord, what an awesome weekend!
You have blessed me with an indescribable weekend and there is so much
that I have taken away. Lord, lead me to
the steps that you want me to take in my life that will glorify You. Help me to listen to Your voice and know the
things you want me to do.” I was armed
and ready to be Super Wife, Super Mom, and Super Christian! I was ready to listen, for He was sure to
give me great direction and clarity.
After all, I had just spent a weekend gulping up every sweet word like
honey. And sure enough, the Lord spoke! And this is what He said, “Clean off your
kitchen island countertop.” Umm. What?!
Surely I was just being distracted by things in my house and I was not focusing
on His bold words to me. “Ok Lord, I’m listening,”
I prayed. This time as I felt more
focused, He was louder and clearer and He said, “CLEAN OFF YOUR KITCHEN ISLAND
COUNTERTOP!” Oh. That IS what you said. Ummmm, ok.
So I set to the task of cleaning off the island. I made sure I was putting everything away in
the spots they needed to go, not just moving junk around. It was all cleaned off and I approached the
throne again. “Done Lord! What’s next?”
“Keep it clean,” he said.
“WHAT?! Do you know that I just
went to this incredible conference with nationally known speakers, ONE WHO HAS
19 KIDS NONETHELESS! I’m ready to take
on big things Lord! Come on, lay it on
me!” Again He said, “Just keep your
counter clean.” Well I rolled with
it. I guess I had to admit that if this
was all He wanted me to do for now, then I got off easy!
After several days of guarding my
precious, clean island like an armored soldier, I realized just why the Lord
had called me to this task. After many
days I saw just how this island was becoming our meeting grounds. Each afternoon, my older kids would come home
from school, come into the kitchen where I would have a snack waiting for them
on the island (previously, they’d just rummage through the pantry to find
something to grab) and we would all congregate around chatting over the day,
talking about what they had for lunch, what happened at recess, who interrupted
the teacher and got in trouble, what people had for show-and-tell, and so
on. God desires for us to reach the
hearts of our children for Christ.
Communication (and good snacks!) are a central way to do that. When they know that we are safe, that they
can come to us, when they have open lines of communication with us to talk
about whatever it is they need to talk about, then we as parents have the
extreme privilege of being the place where faith is caught, rather than only
taught. We can show our real selves to
them just as they do with us.
Our kitchen island is becoming a place of centrality. It’s becoming a place that I hold dear to my
heart as a place where relationships with our family are built. When God told me to clean off my counter, I
was almost offended, like He was disgusted with the cleanliness of my
home. But that wasn’t it at all. He was giving me the opportunity to capture
the hearts of my children for His glory.
And for that, I’ll be eternally grateful for the
soul-saving-earth-shattering-mission-driven charge of… cleaning my countertop.
;)
