What Passover has Taught Me this Year

This year has been insane. Mostly the last six months. It has created so much change in our little world. I have so far learned 2 Passover lessons from it.

One. You can't count on tomorrow. Not cuz life is short, and you never know when you're going to die, or a love one will die. God forbid that should happen, but it is permanent and then you readjust and learn how to live without them. (I know that is really oversimplifying it.) But when someone gets sick, your life becomes a whirlwind.

My usual passover preparation usually starts a month ahead of time. That is because, I hate cleaning. A little bit everyday is easier for me to handle. I have a whole schedule I follow. The kids help and there are a ton of little lessons about chametz representing sin and where we find it unexpected places. Not so much this year. In fact, as Passover quickly approaches, I feel nowhere near prepared. Just as I would start a project, mom in law would go back into the hospital. Three times she went back into the hospital in the last month. Yes, I have five growing kids, who technically should be able to do this, but they are still trying to get school done and not kill each other while I am gone. So the surface stuff gets done. When you come in, the house doesn't look to bad, but not our usual preparation.

I usually have an entire Seder dinner planned as well. (That is the Passover service that happens the first night.) I have a case of matzah. Yup, that's it. Matzah. Praise God for friends who understand our dilemma and have invited us to their house for first night. Maybe we can pull something together during the week.

I guess, though, that this is more like what the Israelites dealt with. How much time did they have to get it all together before Moses said to strap on those sandals? I'm not all that sure on the timeline of all those plagues. One a day? One a week? Did the Israelites really believe they were going someplace? Did they start gathering and sorting a month in advance? The Passover story and the whole Matzah thing makes it sound like it was pretty fast. Did they get all the crumbs out of their bowls and kids toys? I know this year, that somewhere in my house there are crumbs. Of course, we all know that you can never get all the sin out of our lives. Praise God for His Son, Yeshua, who came and now hovers over us, protecting us. This leads me to lesson two.

Purging and deep cleaning. I have thrown out so much junk and given so much stuff to St. Vincents this year. I just don't have time to try and organize it all and find the right home for things. "Just get rid of it!" has been my battle cry. Now the pack rat in me keeps trying to say "but I might need that" but I have been good. I know if I do, I can get it back for a few pennies. But honestly, I don't think I will.

I have been ruthless with the little girls stuff. I have saved clothes and passed them on for 18 years now. I have boxes and boxes and drawers and drawers of clothes that usually end up all over the floor as someone decides to find something to wear. Now, all four of my girls have very different body types. They go from super curvy to straight as a bone. What fit one child is not fitting any of the others. So why am I keeping these things? Part of it is from when we were not as financially stable. What if there was no money for clothes, kind of like the depression mentality. Part is because, "I remember when you used to wear that" sentimentality comes rushing in. If they aren't attached to it, why should I be? Get rid of it. That goes for their toys and papers and old school books too. Sigh. My lesson has been, what sin am I holding onto for sentimenal reasons, what sin am I holding onto because I lack trust that the Lord will cover me? Get rid of it!

Then there was the dish washer. That was so disgusting. The dishes had not been getting clean. This has happened before. It is usually because whoever has been loading it hasn't scraped the dishes well enough and the crud builds up. I usually supervise as someone smaller that me goes in and cleans out the big stuff and we move on. But the frequency has been building. So this time, we brought out the tool box. Now there was the usual build up, pretty gross. But, but but but, this time we took out a few more screws and we found mold. Oh dear Lord, why did you invent that kinda mold. Orange, green, blue, white, black. All the colors of the rainbow. Can anyone say bleach? Like two whole bottles of bleach? Like send the husband to the store for more bleach, cuz man this is disgusting. All this time we thought that this was cleaning our dishes! Ewwww! With lots of elbow grease and helping each other deal with the nastiness of it, we got it all sparkly. Since then, we have all been a lot more careful about loading the dishes in and appreciating all the work that went into that shiny machine. Can you see the sin analogy? Pretty easy huh.

Yup, we as Christians can take care of that surface sin pretty easy. It is easy to see and deal with. Then it all looks good and clean and we move on through life. But sometimes there is a deep underlying sin that we don't even realize is contaminating everything. We have to grab a friend and toolbox and blood of Yeshua and do some hard work.

For me, it has been resentment.

All the work that I have had to do for mom in law has made me resentful of her. It colors all areas of my life. I work so hard at getting her to her appointments, taking her to the ER, keeping all her medical and pharmaceutical information together. And dang it if she doesn't go and eat a potato, drink to much fluid, not squeeze the dealy dopper thingy to make her fistula stronger, make her blood sugar go up by eating something she wasn't supposed to all because "I want to do what I want to do". Doesn't she respect me enough to at least do what she is told? Ooooo, is that how God feels towards me? Uh oh. Ok God, thanks, I get it. If You can do it, so can I, and I promise I will listen better and do what You have told me to do.

Passover! Always a lesson.