Vacuuming for what is legitimately the jabillionth time, my thoughts hummed along with the motor. While I don’t enjoy chores, there is something satisfying about them. As I watched the day’s chaos and fun disappear, revealing a blank slate for more of the same, I finally figured out why: doing things around my home is a way I am showing love to my family.
Now before you start to think, “Here we go, another lady telling me why I should love cleaning my house…” Stop!
You should know better by now, and if you don’t, let me send you some pics of my house! It is just that this simple realization lead to an even more convicting one: I hide in busyness around the house because it’s an easy way to show love to my family.
There it is, my confession: I prefer to show my family love through service because it comes easily to me, and because I don’t have to enter into the mess of relationship to do so. Humans are like water, we will always take the path of least resistance.
I am no exception.
My cooking and cleaning meets a need (or several), but cannot be “my way” of loving. It can only be one way I show my people love. They need to have a clean (ish) home and be well fed, but they also need affection, communication with someone who is genuinely interested, boundaries, fun… If I resign myself to “this is just how I love,” then I miss out on the joy that comes from seeing how they need to be loved.
As I watched rain forming circles in our kiddie pool one summer day, I was captivated. They radiated and ran into each other, all interlocking: the chaos becoming a living breathing cosmos. I was reminded of the day my oldest daughter did something kind and proclaimed, “Mom, I’m fillin’ your bucket!”
I want to love them in full circles. To fill their buckets with drops that make ripples, not arrows that hit only their mark. To love them in a way that stretches me outside of myself and into their world. My way of loving is not THE way. I want to love them in a well-rounded, meet you where you are, hike from peak to valley and back kind of love. Full, overarching, unmistakable loooooovvvveeee.
Featured image by Tomasz Sroka on Unsplash
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