Back when I was learning how to drive, my dad used to say, "You drive the car. Don't let the car drive you." He said it whenever I was going too fast and starting to lose control. I thought about that expression a lot last week. It was one of those stomach-virus, up-all-night-with-vomiting-children kind of weeks. Toss home-renovation chaos and thirty-two weeks of pregnancy into the mix, and I was left with a simple choice—either escape to Starbucks the moment my husband got home or risk internal combustion. "In other words," I explained to Clint one afternoon, "this cup of coffee—and more importantly the silence surrounding it—is a matter of life or death." He let me go.
The moment the scent of macchiatos wafted through the air, my mind started to clear. I thought about all that I was "escaping"—five loads of post-vomit laundry waiting to be folded (for the past three days now), endless bickering over an Elsa doll I would've paid a thousand dollars to multiply into two, enough toys on the living room floor to start my own business, enough crumbs on the carpet to feed a village of mice.
My Home, ... My Idol?
"You manage the home. Don't let the home manage you." Hmmm . . . Suddenly, I was fifteen years old again, trying to drive a car that was completely out of control. It's so ironic that something as worthy as the calling to manage a home can become one of the greatest sources of idolatry and sin in my life. It's been this way for me for a long time now. I'm the kind of person who would rather clean my whole house and then race to pick up the kids from school looking like I just escaped from a refugee camp rather than risk returning to a home that looks like a refugee camp. It's just my thing—the idol I am always drawn to. And you want to know the truth? It really has nothing to do with the house at all.
When everything is clean and orderly around me, I feel like my heart is clean and orderly. I feel like I'm in control. Like I'm successful. And that is what drives me. It's that God-like feeling (delusion, really) that I can manage the messes in my heart by managing the messes in my home. But as all neat-freaks know, it's as fleeting as a clean countertop. And here's the really ironic part: All the time I'm parading around like a goddess in control of her universe, the house is actually controlling me. It's governing my emotions and reactions. Dictating my choices and attitudes. It's not my minion; it's my master. Why else would I feel the need to escape?
And it's not just limited to cleaning, either. As I prepare to have another baby, my nesting instincts are on overdrive, staggering beneath a mountain of paint samples and Pottery Barn catalogues. Is it so bad that I want my whole house to look beautiful? To be a warm and inviting (and maybe slightly envy-evoking) place? Ach, the balancing act! I wish I could sort through the attitudes in my heart like I sort through the kids' toys:
Desire to bless my family with a beautiful home? Fantastic, we'll keep that. Egotistical drive to feel good about myself? Yuck, into the garbage. Longing to serve others? To enjoy and embrace my calling as a homemaker? Awesome, we'll keep those, too. Competitive, materialistic spirit, consumed with earthly things? Trash!
