It’s Saturday. Clean. (Yes, This Is About Your Love Life.)
Feminism told you that a mess was freedom. It’s actually a penitentiary.
I emphasize care for surroundings with singles because one of Feminism’s poisonous and foolish messages is that refusing to clean is a form of empowered rebellion. As if there is something far more important to do instead, like change the world, get a shiny pointy achievement award, or a promotion.
I once behaved this way, scribbling and writing songs in a messy home. Then I recovered one of the gifts of my upbringing, which was my mother setting up the “boom box” (it was the eighties) and teaching me how to clean and organize my bedroom and closet.
The culture’s joy in redeeming a messy apartment has taken hold mentally with women, and it is part of Culture Capture. Feminism’s sting even entered the health space with a twist: “live dirty, eat clean” went a little too far for holistic gals.
The enemy loves disorder, because God is order.
An intuitively organized space that is clean, orderly and manageable, is a reflection of God’s way. God found in a messy space will inevitably lead to manageable order in that space. It is what the presence of the Lord leads to - manageable, clarified, calm order. No matter the circumstances.
If you sit down to pray for direction in a messy room, you may open your eyes and see something you can put away when you stand up after the prayer. The disheveled books on the shelf represent something you can do, while you allow God to do the rest.
It is possible to find God while cleaning out a messy junk drawer. It could be full of artifacts that hold memories of answered prayers or things to discard in courageous good faith. You may find stuff you thought you needed to go and buy, which feels abundant.
If you’re single, look around right now. If you can’t picture a great guy popping in at this moment, in your home as it is, your work is to clean up. It’s Saturday! Use two hours to promote order. Listen to great music. I am doing laundry today listening to Matt Maher.
If you have more than just the Saturday morning cleanup to accomplish, or if you simply can’t deal, you might need help from a cleaning lady or a 12-step program or a counselor.
Occasionally I ask for a glimpse of someone’s surroundings on my Free Consults, and send ladies off to clean up and organize their space. This past week, someone in England protested in her lovely, posh accent, “But I am willing to pay you for a private session!” I said what I always say, “I know, and I work for God - I don’t want to take your money when I know what is better for you today.” That’s how Dr. Pat was with me, and she worked for God.
Cleaning is more practical, effective and cheaper than sessions with me in a disorganized place. I find that gals can’t hear me in a disorderly environment, which I tell them. It’s like the mess becomes white noise that prevents hearing the clarity and possibility in my suggestions. God can do so much more than I can as these gals boost feminine energy and self-love while caring for their surroundings.
I find my suggestions work well for the gals who love themselves enough to keep their home manageable, orderly and clean. I’m not talking about perfection. The knee-jerk reaction about having a perfect home when the topic of cleaning comes up is evidence that Feminism’s promotion of messy mayhem worked. Women were duped into seeing two choices: an “oppressive” perfect home or messy mayhem as creative, edgy freedom. “Cleanliness is close to Godliness” was framed as a puritanical sentence for women supposedly burning with repressed rage. I have heard and disputed all the excuses. My simple message is, an unmanageable, messy space is not freedom. It’s a kind of penitentiary, a merry-go-round, a downer. It also is a reason for a good guy to pick someone else, if you’re single.
I do not promote perfection in any area of life, because I teach fallible humans. I am talking about the bridge in between two polarities: impossible perfection and messy mayhem. A bridge built with intuitive, grace-filled care and order.
My husband told me that he first fell in love with me when he saw my tiny, organized apartment. He was seeing me in my home, which I cared for, and he wanted to be cared for, so something matched inside him. It’s deeper than Windex and Pine-Sol, ladies.
Care and effort is evidence of a capacity to love.
I understand that life is in session, and rooms may hold a few messes that form a sort of frosting above an organized foundation. When a single gal marries and has kids, I’ll tell her to leave the dishes in the sink and sit on the floor with them. If she’s home-schooling and cooking from scratch, surfaces will be alive with a form of organized chaos. If she’s working outside the home in addition to homemaking, she might need some assistance with cleanup. Life’s seasons do not always permit tidiness and sparkling sheen, but manageable order can still be the stabilizing foundation.
Order can ground a woman as life magnifies and multiplies through courtship, marriage, childbearing years, teen years, empty nesting, and grandmotherhood. Take wholesome pride in your home, no matter who is or isn’t in it, how large or small, whether new or old. A ravishing beauty, lit from within, is often that way because she savors what she already has today and it glistens in her eyes.
A home is a reflection of the personality and the spiritual pulse at the center of it, in this case, a woman who is aligned with God. A sense of organization in that home means that love can be felt and sensed, because order creates space for God’s love.
