The cobwebs in the white shutters of the front living room windows have gotten out of control because of how long they have been put off. For several months now, what I tried to convince myself was “maintenance mode” had really become a slow and gradual decline of the overall state of our house. I’d been feeling the pressure of the need for a deep cleaning, but I couldn’t seem to face it.

My husband must’ve felt that pressure as well. He spent the week of spring break doing the spring cleaning. What he started last Monday, we completed Sunday, with a final chore of painting a door that sorely needed it. After finally finishing up, our bodies ached from the physical labor we had taken on, but our spirits soared with the sense of accomplishment at our home once again restored to its prior glory. Now, as I look at my shiny, clean floors, I wonder why I didn’t do it sooner but then my sore back reminds why. Now, this evening, I have a mind that can once again go back to thinking about the things of the spirit without feeling guilty about the state of my home. It’s a freeing feeling.

I wonder how many times it happens that we have to do spring cleaning in our spirits as well? The cobwebs of the spirit must be letting lapse important things like taking the time to spend with people, being open to others, and perhaps even taking an extra hour to do something nice for someone. One of my favorite parts of the bible is where Jesus says that if we are asked to walk a mile with someone that we should walk two miles. While I love the idea of that, I find it incredibly hard to do. Even while I type, I am annoyed at my husband for asking me to keep bringing him things even though he is painting the patio doors that have been neglected for so long. They look great, by the way, but I wonder what is broken in me that I don’t want to be helpful and useful to someone who is truly my best friend in the whole world. This is my own struggle with the cobwebs inside of me. The cobwebs that I have neglected for such a long time that I have trouble reaching some of them because they have become part of my very makeup.

This is the dance I have with my selfishness. Each day, I live out the words of Paul who said:

” I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Romans 7:18-20, NIV)

Paul’s transparency in that passage is my struggle, and I realize that until I learn to sweep the cobwebs out of my own heart, I will continue to be a slave to self, but I’ve never been very good at sweeping. I hate it, in fact, and I spend months thinking about how I should get to those cobwebs, but I never actually start. So, it’s time for a good spring cleaning because the biggest obstacle to a good relationship is me, myself, and I. I want to feel the feeling of freedom that comes right after I have taken the time to clean the cobwebs. I know I will never get all of them, but I know that I am winning the battle as more cobwebs fall aside to the beauty obscured beneath them.

Maybe that’s really all that spring cleaning is about because any battle against dust-bunnies is always temporary, but maybe it is just about staying ahead of them so that they don’t take over our lives, so they don’t become our only focus. Maybe spring cleaning is making sure that we take stock of our anger thresholds, our depressions, our selfishness, our insensitivites, and offset them with the ultimate cleaning agent–love.