Readiness

Last week, we finally got our house ready for market. After many late nights (into the wee wee hours), we were able to take off to Saskatchewan, leaving behind a fairly pristine-looking home for a bunch of strangers to look at. Our first day back, we showed it another three times. Since we didn't get any offers, it looks like we will be learning what it's like to live in readiness.

Anyone who knows me, knows that my focus does not tend to be the cleanliness of our home. Other things always seem to keep my attention (like people, for instance). As a result, we are often living in some state of chaos. And even though I may desire to have that change, the job is often too big to get done in the time I have in a day...and so that mess continues.

Now that our home is clean as a whole, I feel like I've been given a gift: I can enjoy my home in all of its beauty. At the same time, the responsibility of keeping it all clean so that any given time I could take forty minutes and have it in show condition, is quite daunting at times. Usually, my standards have been kept fairly low so that I don't get too worked up if the kids mess it up. Now it's a bit different. I know if I can just kind of clean up before going on to the next activity, I will make it, but I am so not used to that! It just seems like an inordinate percentage of time is used for cleaning.

Anyway, this should be an interesting couple of weeks. I'm reminded of our need to be ready at any time for Christ's return...to have our lamps trimmed and burning and enough oil to last. I'm reminded of our need to be ready at any time to give an answer for the hope that we have. Like in my house, I find that I'm really not in a state of readiness on a "kingdom" level. Show us God, where we need to clean house and where our focus needs to lie in order to be ready.