The Heart of a Woman...

(Above) Our Kitchen

I came to a realization yesterday as I was cleaning my house... and I felt like I needed to share it with the rest of you. Yes, I was cleaning my house on my day off, which seems to be how I spend my days off these days! The last 2 weeks has been nothing but hectic & stressful around the Estes household. My work has been really demanding, then all the changes that came with Adam's new night job, let's just say really cleaning my house was on the back burner. So yesterday, after 2 weeks worth of just being "Straightened up" my house needed a good "real" cleaning.

I don't know about the rest of you, but the Kitchen is the Heart of our Home. I can deal with the rest of the house being a little messy, but I can not stand to be in my house if the kitchen is not clean. So yesterday I spent a good part of my morning taking my kitchen from a "Straightened Kitchen status" to a "Immaculate Kitchen Status". As I was slaving away, I started thinking about the last 2 weeks and how the Kitchen got like this. I started thinking, "Am I the ONLY one who can wipe down counters around here? Am I the ONLY one that can use a broom & a mop around here? For crying out loud Jonah crawls all over these floors! Am I the ONLY one who thinks about that! If other people would just help a little, I wouldn't have to spend this much time out of my day CLEANING!" (For the Record, the kitchen really wasn't that bad!)I had to stop myself, and take a deeper look. As the Kitchen is the Heart of our home, the gathering place of our family... What has my Heart been like these past couple of weeks? How did it get like this? I've just been keeping it "Straightened up" I haven't really taken the time to clean it up, make it Immaculate again. My heart is what trickles out to the rest of the family. What kind of Gathering Place have I been for my family the last couple of weeks?

I started to see that I had become this unhappy, almost bitter woman over the last month or so. Really since Adam had started his new job. I had become focused on "me" and what inconveniences his new schedule had put on "me"! I wasn't making time for God everyday, because I had all this responsibility to take care of on my own! Cleaning my Kitchen yesterday I realized I'm trying to handle it all on your own! Don't you get it, you stupid girl! You can't do it all on your own, there are not enough hours in the day! You need God, to renew you, give you strength, to keep your "Heart" & attitude in the right place.

After I was finished, it was like God reminded me of all the things my Husband had try to do over the last month or so to help, that just wasn't enough in my eyes at the time. He would do dishes some mornings after I left for work, before he would go to sleep after working all night. He would change laundry loads when he thought of it. He had tried to help, but I was to busy focusing on what I had done. I couldn't see that he was trying.

This weeks Woman's Bible Study by Angela Thomas challenged me. When she talked about "expecting perfection out of everyone, and things being up to your standards". That's exactly what I have been doing with my house. If anyone else walked in, they would think it was clean, and looked nice. I look around and see things that need done, and consider it "Straightened" not "Clean". I learned that I need to be more merciful, and that comes through God and God alone!

I would like to challenge any Woman who is reading this to take a look into the Heart of your Home. Are you trying to keep it "Straightened up" all by yourself? Do you need God to give you a "real cleaning"?

Until next time,

Julie