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A Place to Worship

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A Place to Worship: Creating a special place in your home for worship. @ AVirtuousWoman.org #ATimeToClean

How was your day? 

Mine was incredibly busy. I spent the morning out with my husband shopping for food to put in the food baskets we’ll be giving away through our Appalachian Community Center. I took the kids out this weekend collecting donations of canned food for the baskets.

can collecting

And this evening we spent a few hours at the church putting the baskets together. Each family will get three bags of groceries!

food baskets

I’m exhausted. 

I’ve also been very busy clearing clutter and getting ready for the holidays! Even my daughters have been hard at work. Sarah and Emily have been scraping off the three layers of old wallpaper in their dressing room. And Hannah and Laura deep cleaned their room today.

Yesterday I handed my youngest daughter Laura a couple of items that belonged to her and asked her to put them away. She said she didn’t know what to do with them. I told her that if they were really special to her, she’d find a special place to keep them. She thought about it for a minute and then handed one of the items back to me and said, “I guess I don’t really need this.”

Everyone’s been learning about getting rid of clutter in our house! 

After today, we’ll pick up with the A Time to Clean challenge on Monday. I realized I was overly ambitious to even think of doing the challenge through the Thanksgiving holiday considering I’ll have 25 people here for Thanksgiving from Wednesday through Sunday! I hope you understand. You can still keep decluttering, but do take some time to enjoy your family and some good food!

A Time to Clean: Day 16

You can read the rest of the posts in this series here.

Yesterday I encouraged you to set aside a time each morning for prayer and devotion. As we clean our hearts and our homes, this is so important if we want to make lasting changes! Without God’s ever present help, we can’t change on our own.

Sometimes {okay, a lot of the time} waking up earlier than we absolutely have to is difficult. I mean, if I don’t have an early morning appointment at the dentist one hour from my house, waking up extra early isn’t necessarily appealing. Unless you happen to be a real, true morning person.

When I was younger – like a teenager – I loved to stay up really late reading books and sleep in late. I also noticed that I seemed to get my “second wind” in the evenings and would want to start an activity late. I considered myself a night owl. In fact, when I was a kid my mom used to tell me to turn out the lights when I was ready to go to bed and she would go on to bed herself. I loved staying up late.

As a mother, I realized very early on that staying up late and taking care of children who can be very needy around breakfast time just didn’t work all that well if I wanted to have some energy and a cheerful disposition in the morning.

But that doesn’t mean I wanted to wake up earlier than I absolutely had to. 

It wasn’t until I began keeping a prayer journal that I found myself with a deep desire to meet with God early in the morning to start my day off right. I can honestly testify that I notice a real difference in my day {and my whole life} when I’m having that dedicated time each morning to drink of the Living Water.

If my heart is a vessel and each day I pour a little bit of that Water into each activity I pursue, eventually I need to stop for a refill. Wouldn’t it be better to start off the day with a full tank?

“But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:14 KJV

A Place to Worship: Creating a special place in your home for worship. @ AVirtuousWoman.org #ATimeToClean

There have been times in my life when I needed to sleep a little later. Seasons where my body needed extra sleep. And that’s okay. But don’t allow yourself to make excuses. You know if you could be waking up earlier.

These days the early morning hours are amazing. I love waking up early. And honestly, if I sleep in even a little bit, my day just isn’t the same. I don’t get everything done. But, waking up early and being productive only really works if I go to bed early enough to wake up without having to drag myself out of the bed.

Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Have you heard that saying before? It really is true that getting up early makes a huge difference in how productive your day is. I promise!

A Place to Worship

In my house, I have a favorite comfy chair in my living room. It’s my favorite spot to curl up in the early morning for prayer. Do you have a special place in your home to worship God? Some items you might want to consider placing in your special place:

  • comfortable seating
  • a blanket
  • a Bible
  • devotional book
  • Bible study tools {commentary, concordance, etc.
  • prayer journal
  • pen
  • box of tissue

You could keep these things in a basket near your chair or in the room. You might enjoy lighting a candle and pouring yourself a cup of hot tea to sip while you read. You may even enjoy having a cd player or a speaker for your iPod. I personally love music by Fernando Ortega and David Carnes.

As you clear the clutter in your heart and home, think about how you can make your personal worship time a special time for you and God to meet together. What will encourage you to wake up just a little earlier?

 Do you have a favorite place to pray in your home?

Today’s Goal

  • Do you have a favorite place in your home for personal worship? How can you make your worship place special?
  • Pray about making hard decisions – about what things you should keep, preserve, or let go.
  • Pick up a journal and write down your thoughts about what He has shown you or print my free prayer journal.
  • Choose an area in your home you want to tackle. I’ll be working in upstairs today.
  • Fill at least one bag or box full of stuff to give away. You can donate to our Appalachian Community Center if you’d like.
  • Take a picture of your bag. Share it on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, or Instagram – use hashtag #atimetoclean {optional}
  • Leave a comment below about what you chose to get rid of and anything else God has laid on your heart.
  • Do your best to wake up early tomorrow and spend time in prayer. Use your prayer journal. I’ll be waking up around 6:00 am.

My Progress

I spent yesterday cleaning out the clutter in my laundry room. Don’t ask me why the laundry room of all places is a catch-all for so much clutter but it just is. I’m sorry I didn’t take before pictures. Honestly, I was too embarrassed. The table was piled high with stuff and so was the counter between the laundry room and our family room. I got rid of so much stuff! Amaxingly enough, I haven’t been behind on laundy in a while. Wonders never cease! Here are a few “after” photos…

I live in an old house that has some issues. Just ignore the towel hanging on the window and the dryer vent that goes from the dryer out the window. I wish it was designer pretty, but it’s just not so at this time in my life.

My walls are paneled in wormy chestnut in case you were wondering. The man who owned our home before we did owned a saw mill and had the panels specially made for our basement.

laundry room5

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4 Comments

  1. This is such a great reminder! My personal space is my office. I like to spend time with Jesus right when I wake up. With a little one, that's not always possible, but I do my best. :) The one thing I don't consistently do is keep a journal. You challenged me to start that! Have a blessed week!
  2. I had made a goal to start decluttering the upstairs of our house(my parents live in the downstairs part) this weekend. But like all best laid plans that didn't happen. However last night I talked what I call my craft/computer room. Technically this room is meant to be an upstairs laundry room and even has the hook ups in there but as we have a laundry room down stairs and its tiny I decided it would make the perfect craft room for me. Except I haven't done much crafting in there since we moved in. Another one of those best laid plans that never seem to happen. Over the weekend my wonderful husband bought me a new printer as ours doesn't work very well and the ink is super expensive. I decided last night that I needed to clean the counter space in that room off and make everything look nice. Once I got everything set up I was surprised at how much more space there was on the counter top. It felt good to get rid of some stuff that was trash and not really needed and to have a nice working space now. Tonight when I get home I'm going to tackle my husband and I's walk in closet. I seem to always end up with all the kids cloths that don't fit anymore in there, along with my personal two weeks worth of laundry that needs done.

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