The Devil & The Dishes

I'm having a "can you relate?" moment. I just need to know if the devil attacks anyone else during... the dish duty.


Everyone's dishes pile up. I have finally come to grips with this. I can promise that 9 times out of 10, if you walk in my house, my kitchen is a wreck. We DO eat here, ya know? And, promptly after eating, someone always seems to need something immediately. Baths. Fix my toy. Dessert. "I poopy." (Not me, for the record, a BABY). In our old house, the dishes would pile up and be left for a day or two. It got really bad! In our new house, our sink is much more shallow and I just can't let them. The nerve of the sink... to make me clean dishes after EVERY meal! 


My husband is generally very good at seeing that the dishes need putting away and he'll do the duty. But, in the last few months, with him working 2 jobs, I've tried to not let him come home to a complete wreck, only a semi-wreck. I try really hard to keep the sink relatively empty. This means I spend alot of time at the sink.


Daytime is fine. But there's just something about evening dish duty that the devil loves. 


I've had a long day. There's more I HAVE to do and a longing for the things I WANT to do. I'm scrubbing while my husband is putting his feet up. He might even be doing something wonderful like being the ring leader in a WWF session with the kids. Might be doing puzzles or playing swords. But all the devil does is brings to attention what my husband isn't doing. He didn't cook dinner (a job he traditionally does every evening, but keep in mind the 2 job thing). He's not doing the dishes. He took off his work clothes and put them on the FLOOR in front of the closet- HELLO- the doors are O-P-E-N! Last week he lost TWO keys to his truck and left me at home alone for 5 days in a row with 3 preschoolers! 


So, here's what happens. During dish duty, I get in a tiff with my husband and he doesn't even know about it. I get so mad at him. Him. The man making my children giggle in the living room. The man working 2 jobs so that we can transition into the ONE job he started today. The man who will tell me to come sit down despite what still needs to be done in the house. The man who will bathe the kids because my belly is too big to bend over for that long! Sometimes I can't see those blessings all because the devil loves dishes. 


My resolve? (Praise God that He is willing to meet me at the sink!) I have a little dry erase pad by the sink. If you are a Southern Living at Home lover, it's that pea pod tablet thingy they had some time ago. Today, the pad reads:


Psalm 13:2
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Jeremiah 12:3
Yet you know me, O LORD; you see me and test my thoughts about you. Drag them off like sheep to be butchered! Set them apart for the day of slaughter! 


I'm declaring war on dish duty!  It usually wears me out. Not because of the dishes, but because of the battle in my heart to fight off lies the devil is telling me. The lies my sinful flesh buys into. All because of some dirty dishes. 


Today, Lord, dish duty is YOURS. Drag my thoughts off like sheep to be butchered and fill me with your Truth.