To Clean or Not to Clean: Is That Your Question?

By Myrna Parks

As we struggle to survive and thrive in a culture that connects more through social media than personal contact, To Clean or Not to Clean: Is That Your Question? offers practical tips on how to use modern tools to help us enjoy our friends, family, and homes as we grow in faith with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490854663

Myrna Parks

Actively involved in Christian missions for more than two decades, Myrna has a heart for hungry and hurting people all over the world. She is a writer and inspirational speaker. Her most recent book, To Clean or Not to Clean: Is That Your Question?, was written to encourage readers to see hospitality not as a condition of the home but as a reflection of the heart. This daily devotional was published as a means to raise money for children rescued from sex trafficking. One of the projects the author has pledged to help is the New Hope Girls Academy in the Dominican Republic, which is a combination school for at-risk girls, as well as a safe house for those already rescued. Born in a small town nestled among scenic bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River, Myrna married a farmer. She and her husband continue to reside in Hickman, Kentucky, where she grew up.

Book preview

To Clean or Not to Clean:

IS THAT YOUR

QUESTION?

MYRNA PARKS

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Copyright © 2014 Myrna Parks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5467-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5468-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5466-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014918068

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/22/2014

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note to the Reader

Begin at the Beginning

Get Up and Do It

Less is Best

Thought Closet

Clean as You Go

Use What You Have

Roots

She Had a Maid?

Unsightly Residue

Divide and Conquer

No Short Cuts

What You Know, Not What You Feel

Motivation for Success

Never Focus on Failures

Fragrant Offering

Personality Challenges

Self-Discipline or Divine Discipline

A New Normal

Peace and Pandemonium

Making Scents of Childhood

Precious Memories

Peace in the Process

Sharing Burdens

The Perfect-Driven Life

Joys of Harvest

A Clear Vision

Working and Waiting

Transformed by His Pain

Joy in the Mundane

To Share or to Hoard?

Unwavering Vision

One Thing Leads to Another

Destruction before Construction

Wrinkle-Free

Amidst the Mess

From Barren to Beautiful

There’s a Serpent in My Garden!

Use What You Have

Choosing Colors

Reaping Rewards

Socks in My Sheets

Staging

When Feelings Fade

Press On

Practical and Pleasing

War Zone

Pray and Obey

Transformed

Scent Sense

Who Took the Happy out of the Holidays?

Believing Without Seeing

Prepared for Action

Without Walls

Power of Perspective

Down on Your Knees

Patient in Affliction

Shimmer in the Darkness

Do What It Says

Pursuing the Impossible

Suggested Resources

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to my mother who taught me how to clean house, to my sisters who labor with me in the trenches of life, and especially to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who continues to work by the power of His Spirit within me, to clean up my heart.

Acknowledgments

The chief purpose of publication of this book is to help raise money for New Hope Girls Academy in the Dominican Republic. New Hope is a combination school/rescue house for little girls who are at-risk for sex trafficking. The Academy’s present need for a larger facility is both sad and encouraging. Currently, New Hope Girls is the only facility in that country who will take females past the age of twelve. They need land, space and housing to help more children grow into educated, mature women who can support themselves, and hopefully, help others in need.

I would like to say thank you to my literary agent, Steve Hutson of WordWise Media Service for waiting on me and believing in me, and to Carolyn Goss of GoodEditors.com for taking the lumps of coal within this book and turning them into precious gems. May you be blessed because you are a blessing!

Author’s Note to the Reader

…The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7b (NIV)

Have you ever knocked on a door that was opened by a reluctant hostess and when, at last, she invited you inside, were you amazed as the woman apologized profusely for the invisible dust upon her pristine furnishings?

Can you remember a time when you approached a delightful dwelling with manicured lawns and colorful flowerbeds and watched flimsy curtains flutter as someone you glimpsed inside saw you ringing the doorbell? Did you give up, deciding that your persistent poundings must ring hollow to the unyielding hearts within?

Is it possible that you have witnessed true hospitality such as I have when I went to visit a stranger’s house, one day? As I picked my way across a barren lawn, climbed wooden steps and walked across an unpainted porch, I was shocked when a young woman with a beaming smile and eager eyes opened the door and invited me inside. Without embarrassment or apology, she rearranged the clutter from her living room sofa and bid me take a seat. A young child wandered through the room munching saltines and the mother politely directed the child to share her crackers. Although I had gone to the home hoping to minister to a family in need, I came away with newfound knowledge of what hospitality really looks like.

I’ve viewed the interior of many houses over the years and I’ve come to a conclusion.

Hospitality is not a condition of the home, but a reflection of the heart.

1 Peter 4:9 instructs, Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Therefore, if I cannot open my doors to the people I know—at any hour—then perhaps it is time to change either my habits or my heart.

So, where do I begin? How do I start?

Be clothed with humility towards one another. (1 Peter 5:7)

I start by opening the door of my heart. Then by the power of the Holy Spirit, I can live free from the fear of criticism and the pride that feeds on praise.

The anecdotes, meditations, and Bible quotations in this book will help you in your quest for freedom from worrying about what others think. Each day’s reading will offer three ways to change your attitude about housework while at the same time, and more importantly, giving you three steps to the heart change that will have you saying, Come on in! Share soup with us, and we’ll also feed you with the Bread of Life.

Each chapter in this book corresponds to a day of the month, any month. You can use it any month of the year so that you can have an intensive focus on making your home reflect what’s in your heart at whatever time that works best for your schedule.

Each day’s reading offers three ways to clean not just your house but also your heart:

• Make a clean sweep:These points will address the home where you live, but at the same time they’ll focus on you, where God’s Holy Spirit lives. They will offer some practical hints you may not yet know for cooking, organizing, and cleaning. They’ll also help you face the reality that it’s easier to maintain a clean house than it is to organize a cluttered one. If you need help getting your house in order, then ask a friend, hire a professional, or take time off from work—taking one room at a time or one task at a time—clean it up!

• Dust your house with peace:These points will move from the day-to-day humdrum activities of housekeeping to the even more important daily practices that cleanse your soul. Seek a spiritual mentor. Don’t wait until your house is clean before you open your doors to friends and neighbors. Allow your welcoming smile to greet them like a flashing neon sign on a deserted highway. Folks may not notice the condition of your home if they can see the love shining from your heart.

• Mist the sweet fragrance of praise:These suggestions will offer prayers, Bible verses, and sayings from respected men and women of God to help you add the touches to both your physical and spiritual house that will take you fromho-hum to Hallelujah. You’ll be able to pray like this: Thank you, Jesus, for showing me what it looks like to be clothed with humility; may I follow Your example and lay aside every hindrance of pride. May all those around me see hospitality reflected in my home, and in my heart. Amen.

Thoughts and Prayers

Begin at the Beginning

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. —Romans 6:23

Feeling lonely and overwhelmed, Abigail wandered from room to room, looking forlornly at the unpacked boxes and disarrayed furniture with a critical eye. Scott was away on deployment with the military reserves. She and their three little daughters had left the big city for small-town life, moving into the hundred-year-old house she had inherited from Aunt Martha. Abigail felt exposed and unprotected, like a toad in a hailstorm.

Abigail knew she should get started with the unpacking. The kids would be home from school in a couple of hours. Ten days was long enough to live in chaos. Taking a deep breath, she pushed up her sleeves and reached inside one of the boxes sitting in the hallway.

The doorbell chimed and Abigail glanced nervously around at the clutter. Self-consciously she smoothed back her hair as she opened the old-fashioned door. On the front porch stood a dark haired woman with smiling blue eyes.

The young woman extended a colorful bouquet of zinnias. Hi, she said with a beaming smile, I’m Stacy. Welcome to the neighborhood!

Abigail invited the friendly-faced woman inside. With an apologetic wave of her hand, Excuse the mess, she said, wondering where she might unearth a vase to hold the flowers.

Even God took six days to create the heavens and the earth, Stacy chuckled.

I am not good at organizing, Abigail confessed. It might be a year before all of these boxes are unpacked.

I’ll help you. I love refurbishing homes, Stacy offered, with an earnest smile. I know other moms in the neighborhood who would love to pitch in and help whip this place into shape.

Taken aback, Abigail opened her mouth.