Time of Jubilee

As contractors flow in and our of our house, I can't help but feel a sense of Jubilee.

What?

Well, Jubilee, as I understand it, was a time where all debts are forgiven, property returned to owners, prisoners set free (this going on my memory of Sunday school and Michael Card songs). Jesus is our ultimate Jubilee of course, paying our sin debt and setting us free. But remodeling is like my cleaning Jubilee.

I am not a good cleaner. I barely hang on to the daily "easy" stuff like dishes, laundry and tidying. I sweep floors when I feel things on my bare feet. I may scrub my shower for 5 minutes because I started seeing a hint of orange, but other than that, cleaning is not my thing. And yet I've also never really considered hiring in a regular cleaner because that seemed like something rich people and/or people with big houses did, or families with both parents working who'd rather not clean in their free time at home. Even my mom suggested a house cleaner for me but I didn't think I was in "that" category.

Although we're not really remodeling for the sale per se, we are trying to make this place as nice as possible. We are regrouting, which is the ultimate cleaning Jubilee. Tiles and grout that I could never get clean in our non-fanned bathroom, are now magically brand new looking with new white grout. Now our bathroom looks "retro" instead of "original". Our appliances were so old, especially our oven/microwave combo, that we opted for cheapo but new white appliances. So I don't have to try to clean the oven with no light! Same with our cooktop and one of our toilets that I just can't get stains out of (but that Tom is afraid of pouring bleach down due to 50 year old pipes). So motivated by the move to spend a few thousand dollars to make this place "show", I've been freed of all my cleaning guilt. Hallelujah!

Of course the natural response to Jubilee should be one of gratitude and a pledge to do better next time. I am most certainly grateful that the best economical options to get this place looking better released me of my cleaning debt. And with each property we buy, of course, I learn another lesson or two and try not to get myself into another cleaning quandry. I was starting to think I was REALLY bad at cleaning (to which Tom might agree) but things didn't get this bad at the condo with brand new appliances/fixtures but they got bad quickly in this house full of old ones.

So I'm sure if our new house is new or newly remodeled, I can keep my clean slate cleaner for longer than I did here. I did with the new minivan, the new car smell motivating me to keep the car spic and span. Now it gets messy now and then and I feel the need to tidy it up since it is the "new" minivan. I think Jubilee came every 50 years in Biblical times. I hope it doesn't take that long from this cleaning Jubilee to the next because we all need a little Jubilee now and then.