“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Colossians 3:17
“Mom, can you help me out? Would you dry the dishes?”
As soon as she asks me, I can feel resistance rising up on the inside. I don’t like drying dishes. Drying dishes may be my least favorite chore in all the world. Next to raking leaves.
I try to be a grown-up about it. I dawdle around the kitchen for a bit, not really acknowledging her question. It feels like role-reversal.
“Mom?” she is asking me again. “Would you rather wash?”
I would. I would rather wash. “Yes,” I say to my grown-up daughter. “I would rather wash.”
“You like washing better than drying?” she asks me. I do. I’d prefer to wash the dishes, if it’s dishes that need doing. I’d rather have my hands in the warm water, the scent of dish detergent wrapped around my head. But I pick up a towel, and I start drying the clean, warm dishes my daughter hands me, or places on the countertop beside the sink when she is done rinsing them under the stream from the faucet.
She has been baking; co-creating with God, whose image resides deep inside and coaxes creativity out of her. The measuring and stirring and blending and mixing have resulted in a casserole dish filled to the brim with coffee cake batter, and now the oven warms my right hip as I stand beside it with a clean glass bowl in one hand, and a dish towel in the other.
Standing at that stove, just moments before, my daughter poured the batter from one mixing bowl into the casserole dish and then she spooned batter from another glass mixing bowl on top of the batter in the casserole dish. The batter from the second bowl was darker, flavored with maple and vanilla, and when my daughter took a knife and cut the top layer of batter through the second layer of batter in the casserole dish, the two combined themselves in patterned swirls that reminded me of when we used to squeeze droplets of food dye into pools of dish detergent and watch the colors fold into each other.
Standing at the stove, cutting one batter into the other, my daughter had giggled a bit.
“What’s funny” I had asked.
“It’s just so pretty,” she’d answered me. And it was. And what she felt on the inside of her as she created art from flour and butter and eggs and sugar, is so very close to what God felt when he knelt down or bent over and scooped a handful of clay from the earth around his feet and fashioned her. And you. And me. I imagine God giggled just a bit when he looked at you, and God said, “Wow! She’s just so pretty!”
And then God placed you here to get to know him and to love him and to help him let the world know how much he loves them, too. He invited you to join him in the work of redeeming and restoring the world. Sometimes, that work looks like mixing coffee cake batter into swirls in a casserole dish, and sometimes that work looks like drying the dishes.
In the end, though, we all get cake. And we get to stand together in the kitchen with warm water running from the faucet and swirly batter baking in the oven. We get to join God in the work of kingdom building and of loving him and others well.
The work of our hands is an act of worship, and the extension of the character of God in us. I told my daughter all of this, when she stood by the stove and giggled for joy at the beauty of batter. And then, I promptly forgot it when it came time for someone to dry the dishes.
You too?
We are tempted to rank the projects God invites us to, and we give more weight and glory to some chores than to others. I want the jobs that make me giggle because I find joy more quickly there. But, standing beside my daughter at the sink that night, drying the dishes she’d made clean, I slowly settled in to the rhythm of the task and the conversation and the scent of maple vanilla coffee cake in the stove at my right hip. And God met me there, in the folds of the yellow-striped dish towel I held in my hands.
Do you think of work as drudgery?Do you give more value to some chores than to others? What would happen if you saw even the most menial tasks as an opportunity to partner with God in the work of building his kingdom, here on earth?
Related reading: Try Not to Work, by Douglass Cooper, for The High Calling.
Deidra, I savored every word of this post. I love moments like these, especially in the kitchen. God speaks to me there. 🙂 The older I get, the more I appreciate hard work…the beauty and gift of working. Thanks for this. It was a lovely read.
Me too. I get older and I realize what a genius God is—giving us this world and all of its opportunities to fashion and to collaborate and to craft and shape and build and create. It is a good thing. And the kitchen is a sanctuary, isn’t it?
This is just all kinds of lovely! I didn’t realize how hungry I was for your words until I began to devour them! (Did ya see what I did there?) Making Art with our lives… working, playing, resting – all being aware that we don’t pray for Him to come, we thank Him that He is already here! All being aware that every breath is worship. (And don’t even get me started on the joys of working side by side with our kids!)
You are so savvy, Karrilee!
Yes! He is already here! In us and through us and beside us and with us. Emmanuel. God with us. And we worship him in all things.
I was just thinking of you as I drove to work this morning, Deidra. And now I know why. This offering has spoken a kind of joyful peace to somewhere deep. I’ll be remembering your story as I go about the dailyness of life …
My daughter leaves tomorrow; headed back to PA to live. Having her here has been a welcome experience, and has awakened in me a joyful peace I’d forgotten. I’m glad these words have done the same for you today. And, I’m glad you were thinking of me. 🙂
I’m trying to lean into the belief that everything I do is God’s. My least favorite job? Laundry, because I just can’t keep up, but everything can be an avenue drawing us deeper into love. We just installed a wood stove to save on heating over the winter and since I’m home all day it’ll be my job to keep the fire going or else we’ll pay – literally. Today’s the first day cold enough and I’m discovering it’s quite a bit of work, but I’m also fascinated, my curiosity piqued by what I might learn from taking on this new/old task.
Sometimes I have a hard time connecting to the High Calling’s prompts, being outside of a traditional workplace, but the conversations evoked there are always enriching. I’m so glad you and your daughter had the pleasure of shared time in the kitchen together 🙂
We lived in a house with a wood stove when our children were young. It was good work, keeping that fire going. And, some of my very best memories were made in that house. As for laundry, one day I started for the owner of each piece of clothing I folded and put away. It helped, a little. 🙂
As for the High Calling, we deeply desire for God’s people to know that God is pleased with our work, wherever that may be. We champion you in your work as the keeper of the laundry and fire and keyboard and more. And we believe God is honored and thrilled as well. Keep on keeping on, my friend!
This is so lovely, Deidra–poetic as always, and yet practical too. And I love that you and your daughter worked as a loving team. Funny you should mention dishes, because I HATED doing them, and had to, because for twenty-four years we lived in a 1912 bungalow. There was not a dishwasher in this kitchen, but me. I really resented it, and was always griping to Mike about rehabbing the kitchen–or at least getting a dishwasher on wheels that we could just plug in. But you now what? In the end, that dish sink became an altar and a time to pause and pray or to listen to my beloved Elisabeth Elliot on the radio. To this day, I don’t mind doing dishes anymore. And that cake? Lovely. But somehow I doesn’t seem to qualify as work to me, but a whole lot of fun, particularly to the person who gets to lick the beaters!
Love
Lynn
I love this. Love seeing the two of you in my mind’s eye, busy hands and giggling over art made in the kitchen. Beautiful, Deidra.
A little change in perspective can make all the difference, can’t it? If we orient ourselves at the beginning of the task, to do it unto the Lord, our attitude, and likely the outcome would be much different. Enjoyed this, Deidra. As for the dishes, I wear gloves and wash in really hot water so they dry themselves, come back 10 minutes later and put them away, lol 🙂
love this!! love EVERYTHING about it. you and your daughter can cook in my kitchen anytime. 🙂
me… I rarely dry dishes… being a camp cook for a number of years (5??? 10??) broke me of it. drying with a towel is grounds for a state inspector to shut down your kitchen…(wet towels are breeding grounds for bacteria) so i’m an air dryer all the way.
my least fav task? folding and putting away clothes… don’t ask me why…
Oh my gosh, Marina! Now I just want to go back and re-wash all the dishes in my cabinets!
I wrote out some blessings today at work while it was slow. About cleaning my kitchen last eve after cooking all day in crock pot and thankful for the cleanliness afterwards. We had enuf in things to clean up in a kitchen. Tonight my daughter made a marionberry crisp for her dad to take for a work lunch tomorrow. Alongside each other, we share the aroma and clearing off the counters. It is good to think how baking is like God creating a life. We
are blessed to be in His preaence and share Him daily in our walk of faith. Thanks for your thoughts.
Beautiful. Simple work can be so spiritual when we do it as unto the Lord!
Time for Brother Lawrence once again – me, too.
As of mother of two girls, I so resonate with this. Beautifully written and beautifully told. Have you ever made Church Cake? Dina (causerie.typepad.com)
Two months later… this is still a delicious read. So glad I saved it. <3