God's Grace and the Kitchen Sink

I wonder at profundity of God's divine grace. The following experience has verified to me that no trouble is too insignificant for God's attention, as long as it is important to his children.

Heavenly Father and I have a great track record for prayers answered. In fact, God has never failed to answer any prayer I have offered him throughout my entire life. Typically, I don't ask for much. And when I do ask him for things, I first run the request through my "stupid question filter." I ask myself, is this in accordance with what I already know about God's will for me? If the answer is yes, I proceed. If the answer is no, I either reword the question until the answer would be "yes" or just forget about the whole thing. Sometimes, the filter permits stupid questions to float through. But in those situations, God trusts me to accept his negative or "still not yet" responses.

Enough background information. This story's beginning was set in 1991, shortly after dinner one evening, when my mother made me stand over the sink of greasy pots and pans for 3 hours. Despite it being my turn on the family chore chart, I refused to wash that night's dishes because I thought I wasn't strong enough to scrape the filth off of them. It was that day when I decided that doing dishes was my least favorite of all the household chores. [Mom, I don't hold it against you; I was the one with the bad attitude.]

Twelve years later, after returning home from a 2-year, Spanish-speaking mission in Colorado, I lived in BYU's Foreign Language Student Residence. It was there that I truly learned the meaning of maintaining a clean apartment. The Resident Cleaning Mistress held cleaning checks every two weeks--no joke. And these checks weren't just to see if we'd trashed the place; they were white glove inspections! (You really have to have lived there to fully appreciate the magnitude of these grueling experiences.) The one thing that was emphasized in most that apartment was that no dish was to be left in the sink. The mentality was, zero tolerance; even if you were late for the bus, TOO BAD! Take the 30-seconds and wash your and put away your dish. After an adjustment period, eating & washing became second nature to me. The idea of NOT cleaning up after ourselves was inconceivable for me or my roommates.

Since that time, I've never used a dishwasher. I have almost never left a lazy dish in the sink. There may be one or two exceptions a year, but essentially, it's a habit. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't consider myself to be a clean freak or anal when it comes to doing dishes. I just believe that cleaning up shows a degree of propriety and respect for yourself and those with whom you share a kitchen.

I got along fine until 2007 when I met him*. From my point-of-view and the shared perspective of my four other roommates, this sixth roommate was a selfish-emo-piggy-slob. We agreed on this term because he sat around all day, facebooking, on the couch, occupying our communal living room space, making it difficult for us to invite anyone over. When people did come over hoping to share the space, he would throw a silent temper-tantrum and storm back to his room like we had grossly offended him. In addition, he left his belongings haphazardly about the apartment. And that included his dishes. There were multiple times during the year that the dishes towered until they touched the ceiling of our apartment. My civil-engineering roommate would occasionally adjust the towers to prevent them from crashing to the floor, but we never washed them as we were all very curious to see how high he would build. Let the record show that he did wash his dishes once or twice during that year. But when he did, he held it over our heads for weeks as if we owed him something.


Would-be-rebuttal: In his defense, I can't claim to "know" him. Despite spending hours around him every day that year, he and I only spoke a few times; each time, we shared only a few lines of dialogue, at best. (A terrific feat in an of itself.) From his perspective, life really must have been oppressive. He probably felt very alone and unappreciated. He was most definitely raised in a home where the importance of cleanliness and household chores was under-valued. Perhaps he was still coping with parental relationship trauma he suffered during his formative years. I don't know. The possibilities are countless. All I'm saying is that I should not have judge him because I couldn't see our situation from his perspective.

O.K. with that said, the issue remained--our resident sloth drove me crazy! And the worst part was, there was nothing I did or said that affected him. Therefore, my only other option was to change myself. At moments of weakness throughout that year, I found myself kneeling in prayer, pleading with the Lord to change my heart so that I wouldn't have hateful feelings towards the sloppy-piggy that resided in our front room. After I was finished, my feelings of anger still remained, but now were mercifully hid under a thin layer of guilt. [F.Y.I. I could have left at the semester, but I liked my other roommates too much.]

Once the year was over however, the trial seemed to have passed. From the day I moved out until the present, I have had a total of 15 different roommates and each one of them has not only maintained a clean sink but also a clean apartment. I'd like to think that they did so without any coercion from me, but I am obviously biased. It would be great to have some of my roommates confirm that last statement by commenting on this post.

Usually, when a new set of roommates moved in, I'd tell them, "if you want to make me happy as your roommate, all you have to do is clean your dishes the day you use them." My latest move to Logan, however, was different. I was all prepared to impart the same spiel upon meeting my roommates, but my feelings had changed. My heart had changed. I didn't feel that way any more. So, I kept quiet.

Now get this. One of our first days together [the roommate "honeymoon period"], my roommate caught me doing his dishes and insisted that he would do them. I looked at him and told him that I sincerely didn't mind; that I was happy to do his dishes. I told him that I enjoyed having a clean sink and that it was my pleasure to do any dishes that were in there when I was using the kitchen. Since then, all my roommates have taken care of their own dishes and maintained a clean apartment.

I wasn't lying. I wasn't playing a trick. In fact, I was surprised and delighted to find that God had answered my prayer. Over the past two years, the Lord had instructed me while he mended my heart. Hopefully, I will continue using this promised principle of prayer so that I can continue to become more like him.

He said, I give men weaknesses
and if they come to me
I give them strength to overcome
and I will make them free.
[Scripture Reference]

The Lord has freed my heart from hate and granted me a degree of charity in answer to my prayer. I love the scriptures and know that they contain clear directions and counsel on how we can overcome the many trials in our lives. My trust in God has just "leveled-up." The Lord's promises are sure. He will help you and all those who humble themselves enough to ask of Him. [The Scriptural Promise]

Now get out there and knock over a mountain, or something. :)

*The individual that invoked my change of heart has been mentioned by name and in context a couple of times on this blog if you really feel like doing the leg work to discover who it is.