Bored With Your Spouse? Clean Your Room!
By Ed Uszynski
Everybody has a different breaking point when it comes to their side of the bed.
I had hit mine.
Read this inventory worthy of an escape room:
- Pre-worn-but-still-not-dirty clothes.
- An unopened bag of new t-shirts.
- Insurance papers and utility bills.
- Miscellaneous cords.
- Library books.
- A freezer bag full of coins.
- Two State Farm atlases.
- A rock from family camp.
- Random socks.
- A carabiner.
- Swim goggles.
- A stack of mementos I kept from the FamilyLife Love Like You Mean It® cruise.
- Three screws and a nail.
- Two golf balls.
- An electric back massager.
I won’t explain why I needed all those things on my floor. I just did.
Amy had her own Hoarders episode waiting to be shot on her side of the room.
So we took half a day and removed it. All of it.
Even moved furniture and sucked what seemed like three pounds of dust mites off our carpets and baseboards.
Got in bed that night and talked about how much better we felt toward each other. Less stress. Lighter. Fresher.
Wait … did cleaning our room clean our marriage?
No, the Bible doesn’t put cleanliness next to godliness. But we’re created in the image of a God who starts His revelation to us by taking pleasure in bringing order out of chaos. Then He passed the charge to us to “subdue the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
More personally, God’s still bringing order to the chaos of my heart and life, an ongoing restoration project with purpose. So maybe something positive happens when we impose order upon clutter.
Removing clutter won’t address our deepest problems. But it creates a fresh environment for relationships that happen in a room. And that matters.
Reading books on relationships provides one way to strengthen a marriage.
But getting them off the floor and out of sight can help, too.
Read “How Marie Kondo Helped My Tupperware Drawer … and My Marriage.”
The Good Stuff: For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14:33)
Action Points: Marriage need a little boost this week? Clean that room!
Visit the FamilyLife® Website
