Hey everyone!!! Welcome to the first day of 31 — days to clean!

To kick off Day 1, I want to share this hilarious video with you. Some of you may have remembered this from our first round of 31 Days to Clean. Now, it may not go perfectly with the aspect of cleaning. But, being a homemaker often involves being a mother, too. After all, we wouldn’t have all that extra cleaning without children.

Tell me you can’t relate to some part of what she says here:

Humor is good medicine, no?

Choosing to become a wife and then a mom is a way of choosing to serve in a BIG way. Add multiple children & the amount of serving [in the home] increases. Cleaning house goes with the territory. Often, though, we tend to put precedence on cleaning, over everything else. Why is that?

It could be because it is something tangible and seen by anyone who comes through the door. We don’t want to live in dirty homes. But we tend to really put time and effort into cleaning our homes, for often, the wrong reasons.

What purpose does our clean home serve? For order and peace? Does it truly serve our family, or our own show and recognition? Is having a clean home a way for people to see how busy we are and what we’ve accomplished?

For me, having a clean home helps me breathe and focus. I don’t necessarily like people coming into a messy house either, honestly, because I get worried they might wonder what I do all day. As a homeschooling mom, cleaning has to take a back seat to homeschooling. However, I get caught in the middle of this simply because I homeschool better when the house is clean. When the house is a mess, so are my thoughts and I’m scattered. I feel unorganized and unprepared. I need the order in my home to function well.  Love is sown in seeds of service. I desire to serve well so that I might love well. I will admit, I get discouraged as I clean day after day and wake up day after day cleaning the same mess. It’s hard.

You can read my mission statement in it’s completion here: My Purpose As a Homemaker

Set aside some time today to do the Mary challenge and Martha challenge. Remember, these are integral to the change. Below I’ve listed some resources for you, for help and encouragement.

• on things unseen by Ann Voskamp of A Holy Experience
• on mission statements {how to} by Kat of Inspired to Action

Please feel free to share in the comments. If you would like to post on your blog, please do! Fridays are link up days, so you may share your favorite 31 Days to Clean post there. You can post once a week, once a day or simply join us in the comments if you don’t have a blog.

Friends, when you write your posts, please be minimal in sharing directly from the book. Certainly share your experiences with us, but keep the challenges and bulk of the info a surprise. Please do not write the chapters word for word nor share all the challenges. We must remember, as with any book, it is copyrighted information. Thanks guys!

Tomorrow will be our first giveaway. So be sure to visit this blog to enter! We will have our first link up next Friday, September 9th.

Check out the all new 31 Days to Clean videos put out by contributor Jennifer Ross – they are located under the Reader Only Downloads.

Just joining us? We are going through Sarah Mae‘s 31 Days to Clean.. Feel free to jump in and purchase the book (PDF or Kindle) at any time!

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