Why there’s not more under “church”

I was thinking about posting about this blog on MyChurch.org, and that got me thinking about the spiritual aspects of this journey, which then led me to wonder if some might be surprised that the church portion is combined with the volunteer part and is a ways down my list. Yes, my mind follows a somewhat circuitous path sometimes! So, considering this clarification rather than justification, here are some of my reasons:

1. My faith is very important to me, but for the most part I see it as an integral part of my life, not as a separate category. Therefore, spirituality is an important part of all of my goals, even cleaning!
2. In reading about setting up goals like this, everything I saw suggested employing concrete, easily quantifiable goals. I think that faith is hard to quantify in such a way, except where it is integral to everyday life (as discussed in #1).
3. Balance is important. In the last few years, I think my balance may have been off in terms of church and other volunteer involvement. I don’t think I did too much, but I think I may have done too much in areas that didn’t turn out to be healthy for me. I think I need to back off a bit, temporarily, in order to figure out the best ways for me to do this without burning out. In fact, I have found myself to be less effective in some ways, and have already started this process as a result.

Cleaning

One of my hardest tasks is going to be cleaning my apartment.  In discussing this, I’ll also explain a bit about how I came up with my blog’s subtitle.

I’ve always had a really hard time cleaning and maintaining a clean space.  It got even harder when I had a difficult time and it got to be so bad I didn’t really know where to start.  Last year (I almost wrote, “earlier this year.” Oops!), I had an epiphany.  I realized that God really loved me.  And yes, I’ve known this forever, but I really felt it, felt that I might not be deserving of that, but I was still worth it.  And if God really, truly loved me, wasn’t I worth taking care of myself?  Wasn’t I worth living in a clean, pleasant space?

I was really inspired by this, and I cleaned regularly.  Not just the public areas, cleaned for others or out of embarrassment, but the whole thing, starting with my space, my bedroom.  Because I was doing this for me, not out of fear or shame, I didn’t do this like crazy, but bit by bit.  But I did work on it regularly.  Then, I had company and took a trip and got sick, and got out of the habit.  It became really hard to get back into the groove.

Joy of joys, I think I got my groove back today!  I cleaned for a while earlier today, and it was actually fun!  I feel like this is the real thing, and that I’ll be able to continue, a little bit at a time.  I think that in a week or two I might be caught up to where I was this summer, and then I can start making new progress: sorting, organizing, getting rid of stuff, and deep cleaning.  This is just what I was hoping for from this project.  I know that this is early yet, but I’m starting to feel optimistic.