Every day it was a thorn in my side. Every day I would shake my head when I looked at it. Every day I would say I got to clean my closet. I knew it was not only my closet which needed to be cleaned but when I looked at my daughter’s room, and closet, I thought the messy gene had propagated very well in our house.

There is an unspoken rule in my house. I don’t bother my children about how they keep their rooms when they are home. All of my guest rooms are upstairs in my home and I clean them before and after the guests arrive. My children are all adults now and I have figured if they want to live in a mess, then that is their decision, not mine. However, if they come into my kitchen and make a mess I do expect them to clean it up because this is a common area which we all share.

My daughter is very busy at this point in her life. She goes to college full time, works part time for one company and has privileges to work for another company whenever it suits her schedule. That is the excuse I recite to myself every time I see her closet. I really don’t mind how she keeps her room because she is very busy developing her career and I understand that. She lives with me right now as she is getting established and is under quite a bit of stress. If I continue to fuss at her about her room it would put more stress on her.

So that is why I don’t mind if her room is cluttered but I was getting very upset about the mess in my closet, so a couple of weeks ago I tackled the mess. I put all of the items that I wanted to sell at the garage sale in a guest bedroom. I rearranged the way I stored my scarves and purses. I even went through all of the drawers in my dresser and cleaned them out and set up a whole new system for my clothes. I was very pleased with the end product.

I mentioned in passing to my daughter how happy I was with my clean closet and said nothing more. Then God got involved and we had a horrible night of storms. We decided that my closet would be our safe room and we went in there with our laptops and cell phones and waited out the storm. I didn’t say much about how much work I had gone to in my closet. My daughter could see. Before I had cleaned it out we would not have been able to sit on the floor in that room.

The day after the storm I heard my daughter bustling about upstairs. I figured she was cleaning. What I didn’t figure, was that she was cleaning her closet. She did a fantastic job. I hadn’t said a word to her about her room or closet. I had just set an example. Sometimes the best way to teach someone something is to be the example you want to see in them. The next morning I looked in my closet and saw her sandals laying on the floor. It was a reminder to me that the path I choose will be the most likely path for my children. I am so thankful that the Lord has guided me to the path of righteousness. It is not an easy path to follow but it is the most peaceful and serene path one could choose.