My Dirty House is a Grace

I have not left the house since Monday (on which I took a feverish baby to the doctor to discover he has an ear infection). I did go outside yesterday when it was not raining.

Anyway, I was climbing the steps after a squeezed in laundry switch, thinking about how I have way to much to do these days, and how the house is a mess (by my standards), and how I am somehow keeping my cool (though impatience still reigns strong internally), when St. Therese of Lisiuex's beautiful words came into my head, Everything is a grace. And I realized, it is all Grace, everything I struggle with, the breaking down of all my ideas of how my house should be run is really a grace.

And it is sooo hard for me to let go of the cleaning things. It is an internal stripping of my attachment to order. I hate to let go. But I have no choice. If I don't let go, my child's education suffers. My vocation suffers.

So, I looked up the full quotation of St. Therese, and realized, my understanding of everything as grace was the same as hers:

Everything is a grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father's love—difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul's miseries, her burdens, her needs - everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness - Everything is a grace because everything is God's gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events—to the heart that loves, all is well.

Ever since we started school, I am feeling myself being stripped away. It may sound dramatic, but it is life-changing for me.

And it will be so good for the kids once I get past all of my letting go. Instead of me cleaning half my mornings and sending them off to play, I am spending hours every morning WITH them. I am teaching them, talking to them, trying to be patient. And it is all a GRACE.

And the baby wakes needing to be nursed AGAIN to sleep as I try to finish my blog writing and finally get to the kitchen, and it is another surrender. It is a grace. I am being stripped.

Everything is a grace because everthing is God's gift.

And I can hear the knowing thoughts of people who have laughed at/with me for years about my dusting habits. They understand how hard it is for me to not squeeze my dusting into my weekly routine. And it sounds ridiculous to say that I am "settling" for twice a month dusting. 

...everything is the direct effect of our Father's love—difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul's miseries, her burdens, her needs - everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness...

His grace is doing this to me. My vocation is bringing me to God. It is making me more like Him.

And maybe one day I will be like this:

 Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events—to the heart that loves, all is well.

You see, the letting go, is teaching me to love. To love. And is not that what we are all meant for, love? If my house is clean but I have not love to give to my children and my husband, it is nothing. But if I love, all will be well. And to learn to love I must be stripped away and give myself up to Grace.