Clean Bathrooms

Clean Bathrooms

I have a confession to make.  I don’t like to clean my bathrooms.  Don’t misunderstand!  I like clean bathrooms; I just don’t like to be the one who cleans them.  Having lived all of my adult life surrounded only by males in our home, I approach bathroom cleaning day with gloves, several types of disinfectants, every known cleaning tool that keeps your hands away from all surfaces, and, often, consideration of vaccinations and booster shots.  It’s not that my bathrooms are all that dirty; it’s just that I was a germophobe long before it was fashionable. 

However, on a regular basis, with dread and trepidation, I journey into the dark caves known as bathrooms and do my duty, always with a sense of satisfaction as I emerge having taken back that small area into the land of sparkling clean once again.

I can never clean a bathroom, though, without being reminded of a lesson my youngest sister, Toni, taught me years ago about doing those things which, on the surface, appear unpleasant, mundane, and trivial.  Instead, she taught me how to turn those tasks into love gifts, both to my family and, more importantly, to the Lord Jesus.

Toni was only eighteen when both of our parents died, within six months of each other.  For a couple of years, she struggled to get over their loss.  She had just graduated from high school, was attending college, and, frankly, was a little angry with the Lord for taking both of our parents out of her life.  Slowly, though, as the Lord healed her heart, Toni began to develop a precious intimacy with Jesus Christ that she had not had while our parents lived.  She began to want to give back to Him.  Her love language is service, and one way that she found to serve the Lord was by cleaning our home church on a weekly basis.  Every Saturday would find her armed with cleaning supplies as she worked her way from the front of the church to the back.

One particular Saturday, as I drove by the church, I saw her car there and stopped to visit with her for a moment.  As I slipped into the church, I began to call her name.  Though there was no response, I could hear singing somewhere towards the front of the church.  As I followed the sound of her voice, I found her, on her knees, scrubbing beneath the urinal in the men’s bathroom, singing to the top of her lungs.  As I slipped into the open door, she was startled for a moment and, then, she began to laugh.  I said, “Yukkk, Toni.  How can you sing while you are doing that nasty, disgusting job?  I love my husband and sons, but I don’t sing while I clean the bathroom.”

Her response?  “Gerry, I am not doing this for anyone but Jesus.  If I am going to clean bathrooms in His name, they will be clean enough that He can eat off of the floor.” 

As she spoke, the Lord brought a verse to my mind.  Ecclesiastes 9:10 says:  Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your might.  Toni had learned the key to joy in the midst of doing those things which others might find menial, trivial, or beneath them.  She had learned to do it as unto the Lord.  She was offering her labor as a love gift to Jesus.

What, in your life, feels meaningless, repetitive, unappreciated?  I am sure that, on Sunday mornings, few people thought about the hands that had scoured, swept, and dusted the building where we sat so comfortably.  I am sure, though, that Jesus Christ accepted that love gift of service with the same joy He received the widow’s mite.

Never diminish the importance of the tasks to which you set your hands.  Whether at a job outside the home or doing your jobs at home, your labor is important to the Lord God.  Those files at work, the phone calls to clients, laundry, dishwashing, and, yes, cleaning bathrooms are not trite and useless, causing you to stoop beneath your dignity.  Instead, they can lift you to the very threshold of heaven as you offer them as a personal love gift to your Heavenly Father, worthy of your best and accepted to His delight!

© 2010 Gerry Sisk

(09/01/10)