Service, Love and Imperfection

Getting ready to leave another friends house today. Well, their “bach” (holiday home) actually. We have been away from our truck since mid September. We have been staying with alot of friends, new and old, since we left our truck so very, very long ago.

We are here at the bach by ourselves right now. We stayed with the owner before “Parachute” and she came here for the weekend. The rest of the time we were by ourselves. We really needed this time by ourselves.

It has been a great time. I think the highlight was walking out to an island at low tide. The waves came from 2 different angles as it went around the water in the waist high water. idyllic.

As I work in the kitchen and clean the house I go through the same thing I normally go through.

Am I cleaning up enough. Can I see more dirt that I am missing. You see part of being hosted by this is wanting to give back. I want to leave a gift but so many times I feel like the best gift is service. I think of friends who have stayed with us. We love it when Cindy comes to stay with us. She has stayed with us often but never enough. When she stays with us I wouldn’t wash a single dish. She didn’t make a big deal of it. It was like there was a dish fairy in residence. Wonderful!. Robbie stayed with us and noticed that a small piece was missing on our dishwasher (oh the days of the dishwasher). He walked down the street, bought the part and fixed our dishwasher. Just like that. I tell you, that has been years and it still puts a smile on my face.

Back to my cleaning. I want to do that. I want to put smiles on faces. I want to bless. I think cleaning and fixing up are good ways to bless.

Andrew has done work on fixing up some window frames. He has been filling and sanding and painting. That is really good.

I will clean. I am cleaning.

Darn, those stains aren’t coming off the window frame. Were they here before or did we put them there.

Some dried up veg bits in the bottom of the fridge. Great, I know we didn’t leave them there so that means we will leave that part looking better. Blessing.

What am I missing? I know that I will leave some things looking worse. Not from laziness or inconsideration but out of imperfection. I am quite aware of my imperfection right now. If I can leave some things that I see better then it will overshadow the things that I miss.

I think about Amelia Bedelia. TJ loves that book. All my girls love that book. She is a terrible housekeeper like me. She messes up everything but she bakes really good so everybody forgives her.

I think about relationships. I think about how so many people that have been together for a long time see the imperfect. When they meet we don’t see the imperfect. That part takes time. The imperfect glares in ex-husbands and ex-wives. Not that I have experience with that, just an observation. Same person they were dancing in the moonlight with and then, BOOM, he is the devil incarnate.

What about love. Maybe that is part of the whole picture. We are all imperfect. What allows others to see the missing dirt in the corner or the painted windowsill in the back is the filter of love. It is like tasting Amelia Bedelia’s pie and completely forgetting about the best towels that were changed (changed by being cut into bits). Love is the pie.