Some days my house reminds me of a hot, dry desert, complete with tumbleweeds rolling by . . . but the problem is that I live in a cold climate and the tumbleweeds are really rolling dust balls. As hard as I try, our house produces more dust bunnies than I can keep up with - - and I have come to accept that this as part of life, especially at this stage with kids.
There was a time that these lifeless critters kept me from friendships that God had called me to embrace, but no more. I have grown to accept that friendships are more important than clean houses. And it is not my friendships that have changed, or my house that has changed, but it is me that has changed.
I have learned to love my dust bunny friendships.
These are the friendships that weave in and out of our daily lives -- a place where I can pour out and be poured into, like a well-watered garden that flourishes in the warm summer sun. A place where I choose not to let the state of things around me rob me of the sweet visits or the sumptuous conversations.
I don't want to become what Rudyard Kipling thought of, when he said, "You sometimes see a woman who would have made a Joan of Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces over all the mean worry of housekeeping."
Life is too short and people are too precious to waste that much time. My desire is to keep a house that is clean enough to always welcome someone in, but never so clean that it means I won't have time to enjoy my guests.
Now go smile at your dust bunnies, and then invite over a friend!
"Open your homes to each
other without complaining."
I Peter 4:9
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