Monday, February 26, 2007

Making Do on Monday: Spring Cleaning for the Soul

We mothers and wives have certainly gotten lots of practice at scrubbing and cleaning our homes. Have we ever really tried doing that within our SOULS? Each year lent comes around I find myself desiring to do this. But have ever really bowed deep down in humility before our Lord and asked Him to show us everything, to humble us, to reveal all that we really need to work on? Have we ever really and truly scrubbed and cleaned every nook and cranny of our souls? This means our whole mind, our whole heart. It's big! It takes a lot of guts to really, honestly, search for every trace of dirt and grime in every corner of of our beings. But what better time than Lent to do this?

Catherine Doherty speaks of lent being a time of "spring cleaning":

Deep inside us there is junk that has accumulated through the years. You have to go and cleanse your soul and heart of it all. Go into your heart and you'll see thousands of things: jealousy, envy-- a lot of things.
So, come Lent, you make a genuflection--not so much of your knees but of your soul-- and you say to yourself, well, here is where I cleanse. I cleanse my soul; here is where I spring-clean it; here is where I make it a place in which God can live.
Think of your soul as a room, a room that you are making ready for God. If you knew God was coming, you certainly would wash, clean and scrub...


One of the great ways to clean your soul is to be specific in your goals. It's easy to fail when we say things like "I'm going to try and be a better person." But each morning, wake up and say "When my husband comes home grouchy and gives me an unfair criticism, I'm going to bite back my harsh reply and be humble and silent like Christ was when unjustly accused." or " Today, I'm going to refrain from yelling at the children." or "When I see ___, whom I really don't care for, I'm going to go out of my way to be kind and thoughtful to this person." or "I am prone to impatience, I am going to slow down and breathe deeply when I feel tempted to get hurried and annoyed with the people." Making very specific attempts to weed out our imperfections, one by one, will produce a very comfortable soul in which the Lord can rest indeed!

~Sia, Vancouver, WA

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one of us :: 6:06 AM :: 7 Comments

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