Clutter Saga Part 2 (Gratitude Excercise: Day 12)

So, yesterday I posted about the kind of interactions I sometimes have regarding the state of affairs, especially regarding clutter in our home.
(If you missed part 1,  click Here)

It didn't end there. Like I said, I do need a Lot of help and thankfully Jena came to my rescue. Not only did she write the funny response - but she was as much a friend in deed (out deeds, depending), to meet me in my need.

Today I am reminded though that Sam also came to my rescue, as it was a relative of his, he felt the need to also respond. As I look back at that, I am again so very thankful for the loving man God dropped in my lap (well, more like, in my house, but that's a long story you can read about Here).

Here is how he addressed this situation (this is long, but I put it here with only minor edits that may be too personal, because I think his words are worth sharing with a broader audience - we are surely not the only couple to struggle with household order!):

Dear ---,

We just enjoyed a three day weekend here with Memorial Day.  We were able to get the grass planted in the back yard so we should be able to enjoy a new lawn in a few weeks.

Sarah told me about the email she got from you which I then read and I now want to respond to it. Thank you for your concern for me and for Sarah. Just an FYI, my email is kind of long as I jotted down a bunch of thoughts on the train that I want to type up.  I wish we could sit down with a cup of tea and talk through this, but instead I’m leaving you with a long email. I have prayed over this email several times.  I have edited out a number of things. My goal in this email is to bring God glory – that He will be pleased by what I type and what you hear.  I pray that if there is anything He didn’t want me to say, that you will not remember it after reading it, but that if there are any thoughts from Him that you will take them to heart.

The reason why I want to respond is because I have learned much in the last 14 years of marriage in this area, and I’m very sensitive to the pain I have caused Sarah since we got married. 

Five months into marriage, we were encouraged to see a marriage counselor.  After learning about our problems, he quickly identified that I did not accept Sarah for how God made her, but instead wanted to change many things about her.  The thing that stuck the most of what he said was “Did God make junk when he made Sarah?” In my heart I had to answer yes to that question. That was when the problem was identified.

Four years into marriage we had a wakeup call.  I got very angry with Sarah about something and flew into a rage... She quickly fled from me with Caleb and Priscilla, who were a baby and toddler. She was scared... She drove to the couple who married us and told them what happened.  That began a couple years of meeting with them and a second couple, who all had a huge impact in turning our marriage around.  If I could pin point the single biggest issue in our marriage, it was that I still did not accept Sarah as she was.  Yes, Sarah, had some faults but they were not as big as mine, but I didn’t accept the way she spent her time, cleaned the house, the way she cooked, parented etc.  The list went on and on and she could never please me.  I changed a lot during those 2 years of meeting with those couples.  Sarah also changed as she grew and made huge strides in seeing areas of weakness in her life. 

A few weeks ago we studied Rom 14 at Bethany.  Since then I wrote down 13 commands from Rom 14 and 15 like these few. As I look at these commands and compare them to my actions and words during our first 5 rough years of marriage I realize how I disobeyed all of them:

Do not pass judgment on disputable matters

I thought that dishes should not be left in the sink overnight – it was a crime to me.  I would give Sarah flak over it.  I would not be happy with some things on the floor. Everything should be picked up after all, God is a God of order (problem was that I was taking that verse out of context). I was definitely passing judgment on something disputable

Don’t look down on another

I certainly looked down at Sarah for her not taking care of the house like I would

Promote righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit

I was promoting tidiness, cleanliness, order – not righteousness, peace and joy – in fact I was taking peace by pushing my values of household cleanliness – a value that for some reason God left out of the Bible. 

Whatever you believe, keep between yourself and God

There is no way I did this.  I didn’t even tell God much about it in prayer, let alone ONLY tell Him.  I didn’t have any energy to talk to Him because I was too busy reprimanding Sarah

Bear with the failings of the weak

I did not bear with her at all

During those early years of marriage a devotional I read hit me very hard which was titled:  Acceptance is the Soil of Change. It was taken from Rm 15:7 “Accept one another; then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” Here is an excerpt “How does Christ accept us? Unconditionally. No strings attached. Instead of condemning or judging us, He gives each one of us unconditional acceptance. Such love encourages us to respond to our Lord with love and obedience. His acceptance is the soil of daily change in our lives. In the same way, when we know that our partner doesn't look down on us or judge us, we're motivated to change.”

Some missionaries in an African country were telling the people again and again that they had to stop drinking.  They tried all sorts of methods and finally after a long while gave up.  Only after that did the people come to the missionaries and say, “We have been reading the Bible and have been convicted about lying” The missionaries had one thing they wanted to address, the Holy Spirit had another thing He wanted to address first.  How do you know that the Holy Spirit doesn’t want to first work in Sarah’s life in some other area than how a house is kept?

I used to nag Sarah about the state of the house, but when I finally backed off, she had room to breathe and she changed how she took care of the house.  I thought I did pretty good most of the time after that season in not condemning her, but when my family would come to visit, comments would be made about her performance, and it would fuel my fire – I would go back to my old self and tell her how she needed to improve.  What they thought was helpful, was actually damaging to our marriage. 

God always seems to have something He is working on in me.  Just in the last month He has showed me that I have been doing something to Sarah that is contrary to Scripture.  It is how I treat Sarah when she messes up.  Even a few weeks ago, when she would fail, I would rub her nose in it and tell her she was wrong and how she needed to change.  I thought I was doing a great job being her Holy Spirit and pointing the sin out to her.  The problem was that she already knew her own issues, and that she really wants to change, but that hasn’t fully happened yet.

I can relate to Sarah, many times in life I have identified a sin in my life and have wanted to change, but just could not.  It was so frustrating, but God slowly, gently worked with me and has helped me change in some of those areas – other areas I am still working on.  I didn’t need someone to identify the sin in my life, I needed someone to come along side and put their arm around me and pray for me. The same is true for Sarah in keeping the house cleaned – she has known for years she could do a better job and is slowly improving.  Your email to her is not new information for her. She needs a loving arm around her not a finger pointing at her.  She often makes concerted effort to improve in household order.  Six years ago we did a total overhaul of the house and getting rid of stuff.  She finds it very stressful and difficult to do this, but at that time and continuing to now tries very hard to limit stuff and get rid of stuff and to minimize clutter.  Sometimes there are weeks where her energy lags due to some outside circumstance or family stress.  But then she does try to pick up where things deteriorated.

You mention in your email about my stress and how hard it must be for me.  You are right I have stress in my life. Some of the big ones recently have been church changes, those close to us struggling so much in marriage, and currently a very difficult relationship at work.  Each of these have kept me up at night, each of these have consumed a lot of time and energy.  They have been major stressors.  As far as how the house it kept – you are wrong, it is not a stressor for me anymore.  In fact over the last couple days since I read your email, I have thought much about it and it has caused me more stress than 3 months of the cleanliness of our house all put together as I have not been sure how to respond to it.  I have hurt with Sarah over it. 

Years ago when I was complaining about the house to Sarah, she told a friend. This young mom said, “Sam needs to go to several houses with young kids and see how tidy the typical young mom keeps it.” She meant that most moms with small kids have a somewhat messy house day to day except when company comes over and it gets cleaned up.  I know  several families who will never have anyone over because their house is extremely bad – you are unable to sit down at the dining table because of the piles of stuff all the time. Look at (other relatives we know) – even after they clean up for us to come and without small kids, Sarah keeps the home much better than they do.  Not wrong, just a preference difference.

I am a little confused though on your perspective of the clutter in our house.  Despite being in transition with the addition, things are pretty orderly. The living room usually has a few books and toys on the floor that can be cleaned up in less than a minute.  The dining table often has a few things at the end of the table.  The kitchen is usually cleared up by the end of each day.  Occasionally dishes pile up high in the sink if we have been out a lot or been very busy, but usually stuff is washed every day. Our bedroom is kind of messy, but we have been storing a china cabinet, air conditioner and queen mattress in it for a while so we have not got it set up properly yet.  The basement has the kids toys and a bunch of things that we will be moving up to the upstairs of the addition so as a whole I think we have a pretty orderly house.  Is it spotless? No? But we are doing real well compared to many families where there are big piles of stuff everywhere – which we don’t really have. So your email is a little puzzling to me.

There are a small percentage of families with small kids who keep their house spotless – Sarah grew up in one. The house was neat and tidy, but sometimes there was much stress when things were disorderly.  I have a friend who is struggling in this area also. I DO NOT to ever to want a home like that. I have adapted the verse “Better a dry crust and peace than feasting with strife” to “Better a messy house with peace, than tidy with strife.”

You mentioned me growing up in a tidy house – that is true, but remember that mom did not do the laundry, or the cleaning, the dishes or the gardening so it is unfair to compare Sarah to my mom as Sarah has no maid service.

Sarah has many strengths but home organization (like finding a location for sewing stuff and labeling it) is not one of them, but it is a strength of mine.  We have been living in limbo the last 10 months since we have been waiting for mom to move out of one of the bedrooms and for the addition to be built. (And also we’ve been in limbo for the last 2 years due to packing and moving and temporary housing and such). Because of that, I have not spent a lot of time working on home organization as I have been giving my extra time to the addition.  Recently I started to do a little organization in the kitchen, bathroom and laundry room.  Once I set it up and label a location for something, Sarah does great in putting stuff back in that location. If you saw those recently organized areas of our home, you probably would not have written your email.  Sarah is improving in the area of caring for the home, and I know God is pleased with what He sees.  Your email assumes no growth in her. When you write an email like that, it puts extra pressure on me because I know that I have failed in getting stuff organized and labeled for Sarah.  You mean well to help me relieve a burden, but it has the opposite effect and burdens me down – not to mention Sarah being burdened down. 

I often find Sarah reading to the kids, or tickling them.  She has taught me how to make our kids more important than our stuff.  I used to spend the evening cleaning up and I lost out time with the kids.  I now try to put them first. Many times after the kids are in bed, I am ready for bed and I find her in the kitchen or laundry room putting things away. I tell her I want her to come to bed so we can have a little time alone together – the only time for the whole day. (Many young moms we know use that time at the end of the day to do chores since it is most productive – Sarah would if I let her)  When you send an email like you did, it puts pressure on Sarah to do even more stuff in the house and we have less time as a couple.  My family may have a certain standard for her, but I not want her to meet those standards, just God’s standards – and sometimes those two sets of standards are not in agreement. 

There many things that God wants to work on in Sarah. A couple of those things are her growing her relationship with God and her relationship with me.  As I look at the story of Mary and Martha, I see that Jesus was not too concerned with the household chores.  When we receive your email it almost seems to make household chores as more important than growth in Christ – I know that is not where your heart is or your intention, but an email like could cause us to shift focus from one to the other since only the one area is mentioned. 

My personality is that I like stuff put away and everything picked up.  Sometimes Sarah has been away for the day and it is so hard for me to get everything picked up because Hannah constantly makes messes after her. She is at a stage where when she is holding something and sees something else, she immediately drops what she is holding.  In a couple years she will no longer be in this stage and it will be easier. But we have had a little one like her for years now.  Ask any mom with a 2 year old how easy it is to keep everything cleaned up all the time.  

Here is something that is hard to quantify: What is the criteria for having a tidy home? Not one toy on the floor? 1 toy? 10? 50? At what number is too much? I used to say no toys at all. The problem was that I was making up man made rules – just like the Pharisees.  They were focused on the outward, but Jesus was focused on the heart.

Scripture teaches me to live with Sarah in an understanding way - for me to see stuff through a young mom’s eyes.  When I hear what young moms say about caring for a house, I get a better perspective of how hard it is and I can better “live with her in an understanding way.” Or when I read a book on ADD I was able to better understand how weak she is.  “He understands how weak we are.” Ps 104 “This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses” Heb 4.  We need to be constantly becoming more like Him in how we relate to others and understand them and sympathize with them.  It is fascinating to me that no young moms have criticized Sarah for how she keeps her house. The ones who are the most critical are those who have never had kids.

All that to say is that I want you to understand some additional information that can help you better understand where Sarah is at.  God fully understands all this and He fully accepts her for who she is and where she is. 

I hope you hear my tone of not being upset with you, but wanting you to understand things from a different perspective.

Love (I mean that)... Sam

And that, my friends, is why I am so thankful I married this guy.