Chores

Selah Grace sweeping in the backyard

There's a number of pretty high profile verses in the Bible about working with a cheerful heart and not complaining so you can shine like the stars, etc. Although I know these and I know the premise is right, the secret truth is that I really don't like doing chores. I'd even go so far as to say that I despise chores for the time they steal from me. When I was little, I would spend hours cleaning and rearranging the furniture in my room...for fun. Now? The living room in a veritable minefield of board books and toys and having community group at our house means that you can count on the floor being mopped once a week, but no promises for more. When does this shift happen. Selah loves doing chores. She only need see a broom before she is pushing it down the hall "sweeping". She "folds" her cloth diapers and puts them away in bins. She eagerly rakes leaves and waters in the garden. She happily takes cloths and wipes them around the furniture and floors. Me? I don't share her enjoyment. Maybe I just feel overwhelmed by the constant need to do chores. There is always laundry and with a toddler whose new favorite activity is baptizing mom's makeup, shoes, toothbrush, comb, sippy cup, etc in the toilet, so many things scream to be sterilized. I'm kind of just waiting for hazmat to come rope off the kitchen area so I finally have an excuse to not cook and therefore eliminate the need to clean the kitchen. What I do know is this: I could clean our home many hours a day and if I'm not careful I will discover that I spent my life in one marathon cleaning fury. I'm okay with things being a little messy if it means I spent my day playing with my baby and remembering to enjoy this time I get to be home with her. I'm trying to get a better perspective about doing chores. I can say it to my head, but I'm working on it going to my heart.

Fresh Water and Gray Water

so much depends

upon

a full water

tank

glistening with God's

elixir

beside the needy

people

Collecting "gray water" from Selah Grace's bath.

Watering the plants with "gray water".

Women carrying water in Malawi.

This is how most women in Malawi get water. They carry heavy pale-fulls on their heads, usually with a baby on their back. Doesn't look too easy does it?

Water. The elixir of life. Whether or not we have it and whether or not it is clean dictates so much. Choosing between a power outage and a water shut-off, I'll take a power outage any day. Sure, cold showers can be unpleasant, but just try going without any water for days and see if it starts to get to you. Power outages and water shut-offs were not uncommon to us while we were living in Malawi and on more than one occasion Nate ninja-shimmied up the scratchy brick wall surrounding the pool to collect a bucket of pool water we could use for much-needed flushes. When you don't have water, or when you have to balance it on your head for a mile or more to get home, you're much more aware of how precious it is and how much you're using.

Now that we're living in Southern California we act like water is as abundant as our sand and iceplant. The truth is that we're in a water crisis, but it is just so hard to really believe it. When I turn on the tap, there's water. Always. But is that always going to be true?

In our little Leboffe family home we aren't super rigid about water dos and don'ts, but here are some household rules.
1. Don't blush, share a flush. (Unless company is coming over or it's not yellow.)
2. Showers are 5 minutes or less.
3. Brush teeth with faucet turned off.
4. Use "gray water" to water plants in flower beds.

(Gray water is just pre-used water in the house. Maybe collected from showers, or what you boiled an egg in, etc.) Truth be told, we could probably collect a whole lot more gray water throughout our day. As it is, we use Selah's bath water each evening to water the plants outside. As I scoop bucketful after bucketful out of the tub I realize a couple of things: 1) There's a lot more water in here than it looks. 2) I'm glad our water meter isn't ticking around and around and around by using the hose. 3) This is kind of inconvenient, but at least I'm just going to the front porch and not walking miles like so many women and children in the world. 4) Pray for said women and children in the world.

Trust and Tithing and Control

We heard a sermon recently on tithing. It was in fact only the third sermon I've ever heard on tithing in the past ten years and it was timely. Recently I've been thinking about money and how we don't have much of it and wondering if we're ever going to "arrive" financially.
Let me back up. When we were living in Malawi we had to fundraise financial support and I felt like it was such a burden. I empathized greatly with the Israelites crossing the desert, dependent upon manna to rain down from heaven each new day and not even being allowed to store anything away for the next day "just in case". Believe me, I would have felt a little more secure if we had a storage of treasures to fall back on just in case. But what are we really saying? Now, I'm all for responsibility and I know that we need to be responsible with our money. But my "just in case" is really about my need for the illusion of control over our lives and a plan B for Backup "just in case" ...what? ...God doesn't have it under control?, has more urgent to-do's than the needs of my family?, isn't sovereign?...
I kept telling myself that it would be so much easier to live once we were on salary and didn't have to rely on others for financial support. Now, a year later I know that isn't true. I still worry and pray about money. Even though we are on a set salary I know that we are not in control of our provision. My initial, human nature is to pull out and hoard up. Stop tithing. Don't give to our missionary friends. Quit making food for others. I can just see my heart coroding looking down that path. That's why it isn't an option.
We give because we believe. We believe because we trust. We trust because we know that there is a Sovereign One in control and that is not us!