I hate laundry

I hate laundry.  I hate everything about it. When you say the word ‘laundry’.... I cringe inwardly. I hate sorting, separating, and spot cleaning. I despise the beep the washing machine makes when its finished washing, because that means I have to hang the laundry out. I especially hate it when 20 minutes later it beeps again to remind me I still haven’t done it. And then again 20 minutes after that. I cant stand the fact that wet laundry is so HEAVY – I never want to carry the basket outside. I detest hanging out the laundry, bringing it in, and folding it. And the worst part... putting it away- I hate that. In fact, at any given point in time, there is usually a pile of laundry somewhere in my house, waiting to be folded and put away. If you have been to my house, and not noticed that  pile, its because I often make the small effort to hide it before you get here, so you don’t know how often I fail at completing this task.

And all of this spells bad news for me. Especially since hubby and I agree that since he works all day, and I am a stay-at-home-Mum, that general upkeep of the home is my job- and that includes.... laundry *shudder*.  

So this brings me to last week. I was busy all week last week, doing housework, looking after baby etc .. and while I did manage to force myself to wash and dry and bring in the laundry, I totally on purpose neglected my least favourite part- the folding and putting away. And so, the pile of clean laundry grew, and grew, and grew.. until it became a very large pile, spilling off the chair in the corner of the living room. And the problem got so big, I couldn’t face starting it, and so it continued to grow.  By the end of the week, I felt like a complete failure. This is my job, after all. While hubby is out working to make money for our house, I wasn’t keeping up my end of the deal. You would think that would have motivated me to just get in there and do the job, right? Nope. I just felt bad and watched that pile grow, apologising continuously to hubby and saying ‘I will get right onto it, just after I do this... and this... and I will definitely get that done tomorrow....’. It never got done. Not by me anyway.

On Saturday, hubby told me to go out. Just go spend a couple of hours doing whatever I wanted. ‘What about the laundry?’ I asked... ‘I should really do that before I go...’ *shudder*. He just waved me off and told me not to worry about it. And so I did. And when I got home, the laundry was done. Not just that, the whole house was spotless, the baby was asleep and all was right in the house.

Now this is not a story to brag about how wonderful my husband is. What he did for me on Saturday was a wonderful thing, but I realised that there is a bigger story here. What my husband did can be seen as a reflection of what Christ has done for us.

Lets say the problem I had with laundry is like the problem we all have with sin. Sin is the breaking of Gods laws (the ten commandments). The bible says that no one keeps Gods law... we all do wrong things like lying or disrespecting our parents, or not having God first in our lives. We know that we should keep the law, but we don’t. Even though we feel bad about it, that doesn’t seem to be enough to motivate us to do better.  And so, like my laundry pile, our problem with sin grows and grows and grows. We cannot begin to tackle the problem on our own. The big difference between laundry and sin (breaking Gods law) is that while not doing the laundry simply results in mess, our sin results in punishment from God- that is an eternity in hell. Its a pretty heavy difference, I know, but is the reality of what we face when we disobey a righteous God.

Until someone comes and wipes the slate clean. Although on a much smaller scale and in a comparatively insignificant way, what my husband did for me mirrors what Christ has done for us. My husband removed that large pile of laundry, and not only that, he went much further than this simple act of love towards me. He gave me the morning off, and then made sure the whole house was clean for me! When I came home and saw what he had done, I felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. No longer would that pile of laundry stalk me and make me feel guilty.

Christ removed something much greater and heavier than a pile of laundry. My sin. I have broken Gods commands, and as the bible says, my punishment for this is great- an eternity in hell.  Jesus, in the greatest act of love ever seen, died on the cross, taking the punishment that I deserve, so that I would no longer have to spend eternity in hell. And not only that, Jesus- God, goes much further, giving me help here on earth, and an eternity in heaven.  When I see what Christ has done for me- what he has done FOR US ALL, I realise that a great weight has been lifted from us. The weight of sin that follows us everyday is lifted from our shoulders, and onto the shoulders of Jesus.

So thank-you hubby for your help to me, and for showing me, through your actions, how Christ loves us. And um, I’ll try not to let the pile of laundry *shudder* get so big again!