Yes, those are my toesies. 
Tuesday my family cleaned our church. The lady who has been cleaning the church once a week (an unpaid position, btw) got a job and isn’t able to do it anymore. My beautiful, wonderful mother volunteered us to do it this week. Now, when she first informed me that I would be helping her clean PWAC, I thought to myself “On top of the 2038476560 things that you do in a week you want to lug us all up to the church and clean it? We do not have time. I don’t want to.” But other than the dirty look I gave her, I kept that to myself. To be frank, I didn’t want to. And though I didn’t think about it at the time, I was being quite arrogant and more than a little bratty in my heart about having to do it. Somehow I thought that I didn’t deserve to do that. WHOA, Kalyn…wrong, wrong, wrong.
Mom and Josiah cleaning a bathroom...
I invited my friend, Hannah, to come and play the piano and sing while while we cleaned since we could turn on the sound system…so she gets up there and starts to play. She is a great worship leader. I’m vacuuming the entire sanctuary (eh, Tessa helped a little.) And God is doing a work in my heart. I begin to be so grateful for the people who never get seen. The ladies who have been cleaning that church for years never get much recognition…the people scrubbing toilets and vacuming sanctuaries for years on end–those
This is a big room to vacuum, folks.
are the most faithful among us and we rarely remember to thank them. I’m thinking on this, feeling so very grateful for the men and women accross the U.S. who have been doing things, unpaid, that don’t get seen. I begin to realize that this is the most glorious leadership position in a church! It’s the secret place. It’s a place of service that only Jesus really sees. As I’m coming to this realization Hannah begins to play Misty Edward’s song “Servant of All.” Some of the lyrics of this song are:
“And you gotta go down
if you wanna go up
And you’ve got to go lower
if you want to go higher and higher
And you’ve got to hide and do it in secret
if you wanna be seen by God”
Wow. She’s singing, I’m vacuming, God’s smiling. Here are some more lyrics to that song:
“Cause it’s the inside, outside, upside down kingdom
where you lose to gain and you die to live”
“I wanna be Your lover
so show me how to go how to go lower
For in the depths I will find You
where You’re serving my brothers”
I’ve been singing that song for years, but it was really never a reality to me until I saw that doing this hard, not-so-fun thing was deepening my relationship with God. I found Him in the depths of serving my brothers.
So now do I love to clean? Will I be excited to go back and do it again next week? Nope. I don’t have it all together, but I love what this is doing in my heart. It’s refining it.
Now–go find the lady who’s been scrubbing the toilet that you use for years and thank her. But, then again, she doesn’t really need your thanks, because her Father in heaven sees what she’s doing…and His reward is far better than your thanks.
Peace & Love,
Kalyn
3 Comments
June 4, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Thanks so much for posting this!
It really met me where I’ve been struggling lately! Lately I’ve been feeling so unappreciated, like everything I do is so unnoticed, which I know isn’t true. My husband says thank you all the time for the things I do, but sometimes looking at the clothes on the floor, or the plates sitting right next to the garbage can, etc makes me thinking that no one really cares how hard I work. It gets so frustrating!
I guess I just needed to be reminded that when I’m taking care of my house to provide a clean, healthy, and nice environment for my family, I’m also doing it unto the Lord, and even if no one else recognizes all that I do, it doesn’t matter because it’s bringing glory to God.
Thanks Kalyn
June 4, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Heather–for me personally the things that nobody really sees are ALWAYS the hardest, but those are always the things that God honors most.
July 7, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Your church looks awesome. plenty of room to worship in a chair, but also plenty to worship in dance in the back! I miss churches that are alive and have like an hour and half of worship. #GottaGetToIHOP!