How deeply words and actions can affect others

Good afternoon world.  We took today off from school to get some things done around here and to just take a break from the books.  The boys have been hitting it pretty hard and heavy.

Here is something I started thinking about while I was mopping just a bit ago.

I use to be really really clean, almost to the point of being OCD.  I worked at it as a young adult.  My norm was it did not bother me to drop my dirty clothes on the floor instead of the dirty clothes hamper, just as long as it was on a clean floor.

When Patrick and I first got married, he was ecstatic to find I kept a clean home.  He pretty much knew that before, but not to the extent you do when you get married and finally move in together.  We have been married 18 1/2 years.  So when did it become a struggle for me to continue to keep the house clean when it was my norm?

I cannot say it was when we got the boys.  I was married before and had 5 step sons.  Raised 4 out of the 5 and kept the house clean then.

Then I remembered an incident that happened between Patrick, a foster son, and myself.  I was working on the floors when the foster son came home from school.  I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the floors.  He had never seen anyone do that before.  At that house, the kitchen and dining room was small so it was not a big job to me.  Patrick came home from work right after I was finished.  He walked in with muddy boots.  The foster son said, "Mom just mopped the floor on her hands and knees."  He had a shocked look on his face.  Patrick just shrugged his shoulders and walked back to the bedroom.

I have never scrubbed the floors since then.  If that was all the respect he had for my work, then I was not going to continue to do it to the level I had before.  With the scripture I have been quoting, I should not continue to act on this feeling.  Meaning if I am to work as for the Lord instead of man, I should go about my work for the Lord instead of Patrick.

Have to think about how I am going to go about this.

Be blessed and be a blessing,

Just some of my thoughts and actions,

Elizabeth