Every once in a while, I develop a cleaning bug. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, look out! I clean. I organize. I recycle. I get rid of things we don’t need any more. And when the project is finished, I expect it to stay that way. If you ask Art, he will probably tell you that my favorite phrase is: “Don’t mess up the system.” He has heard that often during our marriage.
After Sunday school and confirmation classes were finished in May, Blanche and I independently started to clean up the two Sunday school rooms. Blanche likes to use the corner Sunday school room to quilt because it has such lovely natural light from all the windows in it, so she spends a good deal of time there. I wanted to go through and see what all was stored in the cupboards in those two rooms. Between the two of us, we decided that all the cupboards needed to be gone through. Little by little, we went through pretty much everything that was in the cupboards in the classrooms.
The next step I took was to go through the cabinet in the hallway outside the two classrooms. Blanche had cleaned mouse poop out of it a few times before, but there was some in it again. I cleaned and disinfected all of it. Then I decided that the cabinet would be a good central area for storing crafting supplies that all the classes can use. There were crafting supplies in all of the classrooms, and I would say that typically people didn’t look to see what we had before they bought more supplies. During this step, I went through all of the crafting supplies, weeding out what couldn’t be used any more, and combined what could be used. Then I placed almost all of them into plastic bins to keep the mice out of them and placed them in the hallway cabinet. I labeled the plastic bins and the edges of the shelves in the cabinet so that the supplies can easily be located.
It feels good to me to finish a project like this. Supplies are now organized and easy to find. We won’t waste money purchasing more supplies before using up the ones we already have. The cabinet is clean and safe and hopefully will not be used by mice again. At least the supplies in the plastic bins should be safe from mice.
In 1 Corinthians 14:40, the Apostle Paul reminds us that “all things should be done decently and in order.” That goes hand in hand with Psalm 51:10: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” I find that cleaning and organizing in one area of my life makes all the other areas feel better, too.
God’s blessings on your own cleaning and organizing journey!
Pastor Beth
