The Gift of Clean Sheets

I took this at a Naval Base in Rhode Island.  It just reminds me of your mind after you spent time cleaning inside...  a beautiful canvas that can be built upon.

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of Clean Sheets

To be clean, what does that mean?

To be washed from dirt and impurities. 

To be refreshed and given a new scent that doesn’t contain the foul smells.

To be dried in the sun or dried with heat.

To make sure the item is free of germs.

What needs cleaning in your life?

What have you neglected for a long time?

Have you cleared your mind of constant negative thoughts?

Have you cleaned up your words?

Have you cleaned up your actions?

We all need a little cleaning to wash off the dust of daily life. 

So take a moment, do a little cleaning. 

This will change your actions. 

You know that feeling of laying down on freshly laundered sheets?  It feels amazing!  Maybe that is specific to our family but clean sheets are quite important. Having children in the military, they take clean to another level. Our twin boys attend a military college.  Each week their room is inspected for cleanliness.  The hangers have to contain exactly one finger length between each shirt or pants.  They have to own a footlocker for your miscellaneous items.  The floor has to be clean, the bathroom spotless.  If something fails inspection they get demerits. Pretty astounding, right?  Think about when you do not clean things in your home.  We are all guilty of this activity.  What happens?  The dirt, dust and grime build up because of neglect.  When you do finally reach the moment to cleanse and polish the items it takes twice as long to scrub, dust, sweet and mop the area.  Not only does this take extra time, you have an increased chance of getting sick because the dirt, dust, germs deteriorate air quality in your home.  If you have clutter everywhere what happens?  You trip and fall and in some cases get hurt.  I can hear you saying, “I hate to clean.” Agreed.  I know a handful of folks who like to clean but the necessity to clean never goes away.  Now, let us move this into our everyday life.  What happens if you do not take a little time to wash off and sanitize our thoughts and our spiritual life? We start to thrive off negative thoughts and emotions.  If you wake up in a negative mindset that sets the tone for your entire day.  Positive folks want others to be happy.  Even if their circumstances are vastly different.  Recently I read a quote that said, “It’s hard to be happy when you do not clean up or even throw out what is making you sad.” It is not always easy or even possible, but perhaps a little dusting off would help you make it to a better place mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  Those of us who have kids, particularly a quiver full fought the battle of cleaning constantly with kids when they were little.  When our daughter was about 8 years old she was quite distraught because she could not find a particular stuffed animal that was important to her.  My husband and I walked into her room and it looked like a tornado had blown through not once but several times.  It was utter chaos. Our parenting style was we were not going to do everything for them but rather start helping them and guiding them and ultimately they finish the job.  We told her to start by picking things up off the floor.  Find the garbage and put it in the trash, put the clothes in the basket, etc. Our daughter took everything, clothes, stuffed animals, trash, everything and deposited said items onto her bed.  She came to us quite proud that she had “cleaned” her room.  We walked into her room and well, yes the room was clean but the bed looked like the tornado just picked everything up and put it on her bed.  In all of her “cleaning” she still had not found the all important stuffed animal.  We told her to perhaps actually take everything off the bed and put it in their special place.  After all, she will eventually have to go to bed and well, it would be hard to sleep on that pile.  “I’ll just sleep on the floor.” She said, with a sigh we were in for the long haul helping her clean her room.  We threw away the garbage.  Put the toys in their special place and what do you know?  Her important stuffed animal was at the bottom of the pile.  How many times do we chuck everything into a corner or pile our “dirty bits” on top of a metaphorical bed?  I know I am guilty of these actions a lot.  We all need to take a little time each week or each day to put on those clean sheets.  Clean out that pile of negative emotions, find that small sliver of clean and start to declutter our life. I would add in this particularly dark time in the world it is so necessary to clean those spiritual sheets.  Wash our minds, scrub our souls.  Pray for others.  I leave you with a witty quote from Lauren Bacall: “The best things in life are clean living, good works and big sapphires.  And not in that order.”

  My books are on Amazon:  

The Quacktastic Adventures of Ellie and Lord Barks a Lot

Clean it Up! Wash it Up!

Coming soon:

The Case of the Missing Honk Honk

The Case of the Missing Ornaments

Appalachian Allegory