I have a confession to make. I was a very messy child. I hated making my bed. You have to understand though; I woke up every morning to a bed that looked like a hurricane hit it. Seriously. As a small child, remaking it every day was a daunting task. I also hated putting my clothes away after they were cleaned. I am embarrassed to admit this, but I would put them under my bed to avoid putting them away. Horrible habit.
Eventually, I grew out of this phase. Part of it was maturity. The other part was my mom feared that I would be one of THOSE roommates and constantly pleaded with me to change my ways. Her warnings were heeded. Not only did I make my bed (occasionally) and clean up after myself, I actually found myself craving a clean apartment. Having an apartment that was organized, uncluttered, and spotless, created a friendlier atmosphere and invited a much better spirit into our place.
I find it funny how I changed from such a messy child to one who craves order. I find satisfaction in organizing a room to make it function more effectively. Recently, my mom has catered to that need and allowed me to reorganize her basement and storage room. By the way, this is not the first time in my life she has let me do this.
In the past, my mom has also let me paint the bedroom above our garage and rooms at a duplex they rent. She has relented, once again, to let me paint another room in the house, the other side of the duplex, and maybe, just maybe the kitchen cabinets at the duplex. This whole painting fetish isn’t new. One summer my landlord let me repaint our entire townhome. The happiest day was when I was able to strip all the ugly, old wallpaper off the kitchen walls and replace it with fresh coats of paint.
I wondered where this need to have cleanliness and order came from considering my past childhood secret. My sister and I were talking about the idea of “cleaning things up” when she pointed out that what we really are doing is restoring order. When we leave clothes out, create a pile of papers to “take care of later,” or procrastinate cleaning the dishes, we leave our world in disarray. We need to finish what we start. We need to restore order. This reminded me of the scripture in D&C 109:8 that reads “Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.” Though this scripture is taken out of its original context, I find that having a house of order really does invite the spirit.
This weekend I dedicated myself to creating a house of order. I no longer have any stacks of paper that need to be organized. It is done. Anything that I didn't have time to get to was filed in a folder for a future day when I do have time. Whenever I was tempted to take care of something later, I found myself hearing my sister’s words about restoring order. Clean kitchen. Clean bathroom. Clean bedroom. I love it!
