Ironing Not Required or The Me I Long To Be

 

I stand before twenty-two of my husband’s  button down, collared shirts this morning and am considering taking on a task I have long avoided. As a self-confessed domestically challenged diva I wholeheartedly embrace reality. But reality is, I love my man, and certainly want to be a blessing…maybe even do the thing I despise most. After toilet bowl scouring, spider killing, cooking, dusting, floor washing…oh hey, wait…the list is too long. Stay with me-back to ironing.

You could say,  ironing and me go together like…oil and vinegar.

BUT, as  one who believes old dogs can learn new  tricks and miracles still happen, I will share with you this  post about my domestically challenged life and how God is still working on me in this area, on the OTHER side of fifty.

 

Hope you enjoy this little re-post from 2014…and the invitation at the end.

 

I have a confession I would like to share with you today. I have a hard time with the domestic side of my life. OK, I’ll just say it. I really Stink, with a capital S at the whole domestic side of life. I am convinced my mother has a gene that just did not get passed down to me. It’s the one that rejoices in ironing. I am not joking. The woman finds ironing therapeutic. Meanwhile my husband knows that asking me to iron would require us both to be in therapy. OK, that is a bit dramatic but you get the point.

Quite honestly this lack didn’t bother me… UNTIL I became a Christian.

More specifically,  it did not bother me until I became a Christian wife and mother.

I suddenly felt this strong desire to be a cross between June Cleaver and Carol Brady with a touch of Mother Theresa thrown in for good measure. In reality I was more Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy. In The Chocolate Factory. Or selling some kind of Vitametavegiman concoction.  Or in all other sorts of trouble trying, in my own strength, to be the  domestic diva I believed all Christian women to be. That elusive Proverbs 31 woman worked her way into my imagination in a bad and twisted way.

Like Lucy I really wanted to be good. I tried hard to fit into my new roles in life. I wanted to do those things that seemed godly and good, based on standards I saw and heard about at church and from other “good and godly” Proverbs 31 women. But the fact is, I struggled. And on my best days, I felt like a failure. Until the day I had an epiphany. It came through His Word, and His grace.

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 1 Peter 1:3

The biggest undoing we can ever face is the undoing that God does to get us to the place of His doing. 

It is in the letting go of the trying to gain, and the beginning of  trusting Him to attain for us all that we cannot.

‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty. Zechariah 4:6

 He has already completed that which He has started in us in His infinite perception.

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6

The most important thing I can do to be the best wife, mom and woman I can be is by maintaining the vital relationship I have with my Savior and Living God. I can only grow in godliness and goodness, and be fruitful in my God-ordained roles as I myself am disciplined and discipled  by the one who makes disciples.

The fact is, I have since grown in my roles as wife, mother and even as a domestic diva!  Well, at least the first two roles. Two out of three isn’t bad, right? Better still, ironing is not required!

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. 2 Peter 3:18

 

Join me today on INSTAGRAM and see how I do with the 22 shirts! Will I iron them or do as a dear and wise friend suggested last night: “Take them to the Dry Cleaners, they come so neatly pressed and it’s inexpensive.”

 

What would you do? What DO you do? Iron or dry clean?