When the girls were 5 and 6, we moved into a brand new house….with brand new carpet. I thought, Hooray! This carpet has never been peed on, never been thrown up on. And now my children are old enough to avoid those mishaps, and this house will just stay clean. Ha.
On move-in day, a sweet friend came over to help and to visit, and her toddler peed on my brand new carpet. It didn’t even last an hour.
I was reminded of this story last week, when we steam cleaned our carpet after a water leak. Ah, I said to myself, now it is perfectly clean. Five days later, both a precious friend and our dog threw up on it. There I was, getting out the carpet cleaner, once again.
You’d think I’d learn. Let it go, Melissa. There’s no such thing as perfection. Not only that, but the pursuit of such can easily run contrary to hospitality and grace. Especially if you’ve got little ones at home, you are going to have smudges, and piles of toys, and, yes, vomit on your carpet. I am all in favor of cleanliness, and putting our toys away when we’re done, and courtesy to others shown by taking care of our things. But I know when my kids were little (and, truthfully, even now), if I had tried to be rigid about letting people in only when the house looked good, I would have been lonely, lonely indeed. And I would have missed opportunities to welcome others whose houses probably looked just as bad as mine.
Give yourselves some grace, in whatever stage of life you find yourself. And come say hello if you’re in the neighborhood. You might have to step around this, but you’re welcome. 🙂
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