The Cleaning Lady; Winners of Scoops Birthday Party Prizes

 

Please don’t hate me when I tell you that I have a cleaning lady.

Because I find cleaning uncreative, boring, and well… dirty, it’s worth my hard-earned money to pay someone to dust, mop, and scrub. And if I didn’t have a job, it’d be worth my husband’s hard –earned money to pay someone. 

Recently I was de-cluttering the dining room. “What are you doing?” asked my husband. ”I thought Wendy was coming tonight.”

“She is, but I don’t want her to see what a mess we live in.”

He chuckled and shook his head. I think he quit trying to figure me out about thirty years ago.  

“It’s pretty bad that I only clean house right before the cleaning lady comes, huh? But I guess it’s good I have her, or I’d never clean.”  

He left the room then, so I talked to myself as I threw away old mail and wiped the table. “Cleaning is like editing. If I want to write for only God and myself, I don’t worry about cleaning it up. I mix metaphors, tell instead of show, and use tons of passive verbs (I feel sorry for passive verbs, since writers have gone on strike against them. But that’s another article). 

“But if I want to share my writing, I need to clean it up, so my readers won’t be appalled at how messy I am.  I edit my fingers to a frazzle, making my writing as perfect as I’m capable of, so an editor—the cleaning lady, if you like—will fall in love with it and buy it. Then I can make more money to pay my housecleaning lady. See how well that works?”

I pretended he heard me, and that the sounds coming from his den were sounds of agreement.  But I rather think he was enjoying the John Wayne movie he was watching.

Do you clean, create, and work for yourself and God, as well as for others? How does your work differ when you do it for others?

P.S. The Winners of our Two Scoops One Year Birthday Party are:

1st Place: Denise from Shortybear's Place!

2nd Place: Rose Chandler Johnson from Write Moments with God!

3rd Place: Cecelia Lester (Quietspirit) from Following My King!

Thanks to all who entered, and for all your warm congratulations. I appreciate you!

Clean Up

Cleaning Up is Never Finished!

I am 'cleaning up' my book manuscript. I'm on the third round. This time I'm looking for better words, tightening my too-long sentences, striving for easier readability. It's hard work, but I love it. Most of the time.

I wonder if God looks at me like I view my articles and book manuscript: always a work in progress, always in need of some more "clean up." The difference is, I will one day finish my book and I believe someone will like it well enough to publish it. But as long as I'm on this earth, God will not be finished refining me. There will always be places in me that require "editing": a tacky attitude, a sloppy habit, a wrong motive.

Until Jesus comes to fly me to my real home in Heaven, I will need daily, hourly fixing. "Please don't give up on me, Lord. Help me cooperate with your corrections, so I will make you proud that you chose me as your daughter."