Day 9 - 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge
I'm feeling very lazy today!! It's ugly and rainy here in Houston, and one of those days when you just want to curl up with a good book. However, I don't have that option. In my quest to be held accountable for the 40 bags in 40 Days Challenge, it's quite an ordeal to come up with content every day, and still manage to set out to complete my regular daily tasks. Monday - Wednesdays posts actually took me most of the day, and I realized I'm behind in my laundry and my regular chores around the host.
Please indulge me that today's steps in organizing your linen closet is not mine. It comes from HGTV.com. But, it's exactly how I clean out my linen closet. The tips at the end are ones I've come up with (I'm sure I read them somewhere) but I use them, and they have made a world of difference in keeping my linen closet clean.
First: Sort
Set the timer for 20 minutes, grab your sorting boxes and turn your attention to a single shelf area or drawer. Remove everything from the shelf — sheets, towels, lost toys — and sort into like piles. Linens to be returned to the closet can be placed on the portable table for refolding; out-of-place items are delivered to the appropriate boxes (Put Away, Sell/Donate, Storage).
Second: Toss
Assess your linens while you toss trash. Ripped sheets, ragged towels and stained tablecloths deserve an honorable retirement, offering new life if repurposed. Worn pillowcases, a hole snipped for a hanger, serve as dust covers for stored clothing; the household's car washer will prize shredded sheets for polishing chrome bumpers.
Third: Organize
Once the space is clear, use spray cleaner to remove dust and dirt. Turn to the stacked linens on the temporary table. Refolding is probably a must, but fold smart.
Fourth: Put Away
When the shelf is replaced or the timer rings, grab the Put Away box and circle the house, restoring items to their proper home. Tuck away the Storage and Sell/Donate boxes, and toss the trash.
Tips & Hacks:
1. Store your sheets together in a bundle. I fold a sheet set and store it inside one of the pillow cases. It keeps everything together and looks much nicer in the closet. No more trying to make my fitted sheet look uniform.
2. Corral smaller items and store in bins and totes. Again, label, label, label. I have plastic containers for first aid items, cold and flu meds, and anything else that needs organizing. I not only do this in my linen closet but all over the house as well. It has helped immensely.
3. Use large baskets for items you can take with you. For instance, I have a basket that says "beach". In it I store beach towels, snorkeling gear, sun screen, and a few other odds and ends. Now that we have a pool, it goes outside whenever we are hanging out by the pool, and at the end of the day - it all goes back in to be washed and sorted.
4. Since I like to decorate my house for each holiday/season - I have a lot of table runners and table cloths. I store them on pant hangers and hang them in the linen closet. If you don't have a hanging area in your linen closet you can make one with a shower curtain rod or curtain rod. A quick tip for getting out wrinkles if you don't have time to iron your table runner/table cloth: Put your table cloth on the table, fill a spray bottle with warm water and spritz the table cloth. When it dries the wrinkles are gone. It doesn't always work first try, but it does work. Downy makes a wrinkle spray you can use as well that works, too.
Daily Devotion - 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge:
Today's reading in Ashes to Fire: Don't forget you can read Lorragenia's thoughts on today's devotion on our church FaceBook page.
Genesis 40:21-23New International Version (NIV)
21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand— 22 but he impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.
23 The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.
and the gospel reading is from Mark 2:13-22
3 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”
19 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
21 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”
How many times have we started a project or habit only to forget it not long after? New Year's Resolutions anyone? It's about this time of the year when all of our New Year's Resolutions are forgotten and we've gotten back to status quo.
I can go back to the beginning of this post where I say how tired I am, and that writing a daily blog for forty days is time consuming, and without the accountability to my friend Lorragenia, the sponsor who provided the prizes, and my readers - I'd miss a day or two then three then I bet by the time Easter ran around, it'd be a twice weekly blog again.
This challenge, too. As soon as we complete it and give our 40 bags to charity and have our homes Spring Cleaned, is it back to status quo? For many of us yes. I've said a few times that I want, for me, this to be more than 40 days, but to become something where I can make more than a passing impact on those who are in need.
How many times have we done something nice for someone only to have them forget or not acknowledge it in the way would like? I've been guilty of doing this to others,it's only human. We live in a busy busy world.
As I read about Genesis, I thought about how some of my "good deeds" have been tossed by the wayside, left unacknowledged, and I was kind of bugged. Then as I read the gospel reading, I realized I don't do what I do for the recognition for me, but for showing Christ to others. It's not about me. I remembered, too the scripture that says if I want the recognition now and for myself, that's the only reward I'm going to get. While it's nice for the here and now, as a Christian, I'm living beyond myself and the here and now.
I learned this lesson a few years ago in a big way. We attended a church where Dave and I led the outreach. Within that church we had a young couple who were trying hard to make it on their own. Neither came from a Christian background, so Dave and I took them under our wing so to speak. Somehow, something happened in the church and the husband of this couple became very angry at a few things and didn't hesitate to speak his mind. It wasn't pretty and it was very hurtful to all of those he "attacked".
Fast forward a few months, and I learned that they were having a hard time. She wasn't feeling well, and he was working whatever job he could to make ends meet. I felt that we needed to do something for them, so I arranged for meals to be delivered. I sent an email and set up the days and times with them and reached out to the members of our church to sign up for meals. Many of the people who signed up were the ones that were on the receiving end of the husband's tirade, so this did my heart good. I did have a fleeting thought that maybe they'd find a reason to slip a little something in their meals. Just kidding.
As the day and time came for the first meal, my husband and I went to their house. They didn't answer the door, so I called and no answer on the phone. I double checked the email, and yes, they were supposed to be home. We called again and left a voicemail that we just left the meal on their porch. The next meal came along and I got a text from the member who delivered it and said they weren't home, so she left it on their porch. By about the fourth meal, the person who went to delivery it called me and said that every meal we had delivered remained on the porch untouched. I again checked the email to make sure my dates were correct. They were. Later that week I saw on social media that they had left town for the days we were delivering the meals. I was livid and I just knew it was done on purpose.
I was ugly. I was self-righteous. I patted myself on the back and everyone else who had helped. How noble we were, and how awful they were. We weren't going to do anything for them ever again.
Fast forward a few months, and I was cleaning out my pantry. As I was setting aside food to take to the food bank, I knew immediately I was to give it to this young family. He was out of work, they had a baby, and needed help. I was mad, but when Dave saw me putting things in boxes rather angrily, he said, "I think we're supposed to give it the Jones family." I said, "Yeah, I already got that message." Even worse still, I knew we had to ask the church - the same people who had been burned by the meals to give to the cause. They didn't even question it, and for two weeks filled up the vestibule of our church.
I sent the couple an email and told them about the food. I was bound and determined that by golly, I wasn't going to to go out of my way to deliver it. So, the day came for pick up. I was at the church working in the yard. It was hot, humid, and miserable. I was on the beat up church mower that had seen better days. As you rode it, the seat would get so hot, it would make it seem like it was at least another 100 degrees outside. It could be used as a great deterrent on the conditions of hell and why you needed to live for Jesus.
He arrived to pick up the pantry pounding items. I called out that they were in the foyer and kept mowing. As I made my way around, he was still standing by his truck so I went on over thinking the door was locked. It wasn't. In fact, he pretty much watched as I loaded his entire back end truck with boxes of canned goods, pantry items, etc. I was so mad. I mean, the least he could have done was help me load everything up to say the least of offering to finish the mowing of the church property. Again, I let my backside show and told everyone at church of their ungratefulness, and how they never acknowledged the meals or even the food we were providing. I knew I was done doing anything more for this family.
I may have been done, but God wasn't done. I won't go into the rest of the things that God put on my heart, on my husband's heart, and other's hearts to do for this family - but we were all obedient. The thing of it is, the next time God laid something on my heart to do, my husband said to me, "I wish you would hurry and get the point before we end up having to give this family our house."
You see, I wasn't doing it for them. I was doing it for me. God was teaching me a lesson. He was teaching me that when He calls me to do something for someone in His name, it's not about me. I don't deserve the thanks from the congregation for heading up the effort or the people we're helping. Instead, I need to be the one who is thankful and grateful. God wasn't having me reach out to humble this family, it was to humble me. He was going to keep teaching me until I not only got it in my head, but my heart. And, each time it was going to "cost" me more and more.
When it hit my heart, I knew it. I knew because my entire thought process changed, my prayers changed, and my motivation changed.
Wouldn't you know it - within days of my heart change that family was in church - and the husband was standing up, contrite, repentant, and renewing His walk with God.
1 Corinthians 3:21, 22b-23 "So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours...all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God."
When people forget or ignore what we've done, God doesn't. So, even though it's not about me. It is about me, and about my relationship with God. It's not about being able to say, "I did this and this, gave this to charity, helped this person." Instead it's about having the right heart with God, and being obedient to Him. When that's our motivation, it allows God to work in us and through us.
