Laundry – The Never Ending Cycle

My precious family, who I love dearly, produces HUGE quantities of laundry.  There is so much effort involved in gathering all the laundry, sorting it by color and type, washing, drying, folding, and finally getting to put it all away.

Doing the laundry these days can be a bit like putting together a puzzle. There are numerous types of washing cycles to analyze:  heavy duty, delicate, extra delicate, express wash, and normal (and with all these available options, I almost always choose normal).  There are different water temperature choices:  cold, hot, warm.  There are the choices of which detergent to use (some friends even make their own), whether or not fabric softener is a good idea (to use or not use on towels, I’m still not sure), and the scary decision to use bleach at times.  I even found myself last weekend spending the better part of a Saturday morning cleaning my washing machine.  You would think of all the appliances, this one could keep itself clean!  Apparently, if you leave wet clothes sitting in the washer for long (not that I ever do that!!), mold and mildew begin to take over and build colonies.

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Then we move everything over to the dryer which is a little easier to navigate except that if you leave clothes sitting in there too long, it can lead to laundry step number 3 – ironing (and who wants to do that?!?).  Or you can try my standby routine of just running the dryer again, and sometimes a second and third time when you forget about it.

And then we still have to tackle folding and putting away of all those freshly cleaned clothes.  Perhaps we even get a little sidetracked by the inevitable realization that we don’t have matches for a sock or two.  Why is that?  Almost every time!  And we are not even going to get into the stains that we miss until it’s too late or the pockets filled with kleenex, ink pens, and even electronics that we somehow overlooked.

Hate is a strong word.  So let me just say that I strongly dislike laundry.  The thought of it.  The process of it.  But what I strongly dislike the most of all about laundry is the never ending cycle of it.  It’s a permanent fixture on my task list and if I don’t stay on top of it everyday, the piles just continue to grow.

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But this devotional isn’t all about laundry (although I am praying for a better laundry attitude).  I have recently noticed another seemingly never ending cycle in my life.  It is the cycle of learning to place my full trust in Christ.

A problem, a conflict, a burden, an illness, or even just a desire in my heart comes up and I begin to pray.  I ask the Lord for direction and guidance and then trust in His timing.  Trust for a little while.  Then begin to question.  Then begin to doubt.  Does God hear me?  Does he understand the importance and the urgency of my request?  Surely there is something I could do to move it along.  Nothing is happening.  No movement.  I continue to pray even with doubt in my heart.  And then in His perfect timing (which is almost always different than my time table), His perfect way (which is always so much better than I imagined), and with His perfect provision, a prayer is answered.  My heart is full.  I can see His hand in the situation.  I begin to understand His timing.  I rejoice in His greatness and understand once again how much He cares for me.

And just like my laundry, this becomes a sadly repeating cycle.  When will I finally learn to lay it at His feet and then place my full trust in Him?  And then be patient in the waiting, understanding with His plan, and faithful in my walk?  How many times before my faith begins to strengthen and grow?  When will I quit being so fearful of the curve balls that life can throw in my direction?

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This is a spin cycle that can come to an end in our lives.  Perhaps a comparison of these two life processes will help us remember and even give us something positive to focus on while we are doing laundry.

• WASH.  Learning to trust begins with prayer, and, when we have unconfessed sin in our life, it makes it much harder for Christ to hear our requests.  Sin and disobedience create a wedge in our relationship with him and others.  So just like the washing portion of our laundry routine, our hearts need to be washed and cleaned of sin through His forgiveness and grace.  
• DRY.  Then comes the heat of the dryer.  God in His vast wisdom can work through the heat of the circumstances and struggles in our lives.  He can use them to mold us and make us more like Him.
• FOLD.  Folding is next, and it requires a little more effort on our part.  This is where we need to be committed every day to spending time with the Savior in prayer and Bible study.  In this time that we set aside just for Him, He will change our wayward hearts, He will quiet our worries and doubts and replace it with His peace, and He will provide His loving direction and guidance in our lives.
• PUT AWAY.  The last and probably most important step in our laundry routine is putting it all away.  When we turn over our requests, our burdens, our fears, our struggles to our loving Heavenly Father, we need to put it out of our minds.  After we lay it at His feet, we need to  walk away with confidence that He’s got this!  There is no need for our  doubts, our worries, our fear.  We can finally TRUST in His sovereignty, His timing, and His plan.

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My prayer is that we step out of the never ending cycle.  That we place our trust fully and completely in Christ.  That we pray to Him who understands, who has a plan, who cares for us more deeply than anyone else in our lives and that we wait.  That we wait with patience and with a heart full of faith and hope.  That we stop the cycle of questioning, doubting, and in some cases not believing for we know that He will strengthen our heart.  And that we can finally get caught up on laundry (maybe that last part was just for me!)