Cara, an acquaintance I met at a wedding reception, told me this story. For over a year she and Doug, her husband, had been fostering Brad, a junior high school boy they planned to adopt. Cara and Doug both worked at the school, she as a phys. ed. teacher and cheerleader coach, and Doug as a history teacher and football coach. Needless to say, they were a busy couple , for they were also active in their church.

Brad came into the kitchen one day and said, “I don’t have any clean underwear.”

Cara answered,, “Yes you do; it’s in your chest of drawers”

“I have a chest of drawers?” asked Brad.

“Yes!” Said Cora, “that piece of furniture in your room with drawers in it.”

“Oh!, said Brad, “I didn’t know that was mine,” and headed back to his room.

For at least the last two years Cara had heaped the clean laundry onto the living room couch and everyone helped themselves to their own clothes.

“Poor Brad didn’t even know he had a chest of drawers, or what it’s used for,” Cara said laughingly. Then she added, “I guess mothering means more than making sure they do their homework, and get to football practice.”

It reminded me of Proverbs 3:5, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding . In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. That morning Cara received a reset for her home life, the kind of reset that God must love to deliver, as it came to a willing heart. Focusing only on our full “outer” lives can make us forget our laundry.

Mother Teresa’s sisters’ lives are spent largely in the public eye. Each nun owns two habits and a bucket in which to wash one while wearing the other. Their mission to the “poorest of the poor” keeps them outside their convents much of the time, but their daily exertions are fueled by early morning and evening prayer and scripture reading. Their

fruitfulness has spread around the world.

Doing our spiritual laundry is simply going to God daily: Create in me a clean heart, O God! (Psalm 51:10) Putting laundry away for others is interceding in prayer for those around us. Receiving a clean heart comes by confessing our sins. God’s calls to us to turn inward toward Him are not all as gentle as the reminder Cara received, but He is always calling, always waiting to deliver clean laundry.

Love in Him,

Prue