⁣⁣I was of absolutely no use that day, since I had recently found out I was pregnant with our first, and I was beyond sick.

⁣⁣But my husband was doing great!

⁣⁣My heart sank as I looked at our completely empty apartment, though. ⁣⁣

Because even though our stuff was all gone, there was so much CLEANING that still had to happen before we handed the keys back to management the next day.

⁣⁣And my husband’s grad school schedule meant the cleaning would all fall to me. ⁣⁣

Even though I was so sick and so tired.

⁣⁣I remember my husband suggesting we just give the apartment back as it was, willingly forfeiting our deposit.

⁣⁣But it was a huge deposit, and I wanted to get that money back. ⁣⁣

I prayed that night that I would feel well enough to clean. ⁣⁣

That next morning, I woke up to a text from a lady in our ward that we were leaving:

⁣⁣“Hey Cali! I heard you are feeling really sick! (Congrats!) My family wants to come clean your apartment today so that you don’t have to. We’ll bring all our own cleaning supplies and make sure it’s super clean. You just rest and relax today!”

⁣⁣I never set foot in that apartment again, and we eventually got our full deposit back.

⁣⁣I’ve thought a lot about this lady’s ridiculously kind offer, her teenage kids that probably weren’t super happy to learn about their family activity that evening, and her charitable heart that acted immediately after hearing a need.

⁣⁣I also have thought about how the Lord COULD have given me strength to clean my apartment. He could have caused my sickness to subside. ⁣⁣

But instead he gave this family a chance to serve and to act.

⁣⁣“We will surely be blessed with opportunities to be instruments in His hands”. -Elder Ulisses Soares ⁣⁣

It’s a blessing to be able to do what the Lord would do. ⁣⁣

He could make it all happen on His own, without any of us helping.

⁣⁣But He generously gives us the blessing of being able to act in His behalf. 

⁣⁣Moses got this blessing, too. ⁣⁣

There were many ways the Israelites could have been freed. ⁣Yet the Lord was loving and kind enough to let Moses lead the way.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Cleaning the apartment first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

Invite someone over!

???? It’s foolproof! Instead of a big open-ended never-finished task, you’ve now placed a deadline, and then you just magically get it done in whatever time you have!

To all my friends, yes, this is honestly why I like hosting play dates at our house so much. #truestory

Because I am a procrastinator!

So what’s so wrong about procrastinating our repentance?

First of all, we don’t know when the deadline is.

We have no clue when all this repenting needs to be complete. And so we can’t wait until right before the deadline, because then we’d probably miss it.

But much more importantly, what does repentance mean?

To change.

And God doesn’t want us to wait to change.

Because that’s literally why we are here on earth!

I’m actually working on getting better at doing small cleaning habits so that I don’t even have to rush before friends come over.

And I’m getting better and better at doing that! Taking care of little messes as soon as they happen, cleaning up toys as we go, doing dishes more often… those little things all add up to not needing to scramble as much when someone comes over.

And that’s what we really want in our spiritual lives, right?

Making small little daily changes in order to just be more spiritually mature as we go, instead of trying to “grow up” later.

Seeing sin that has taken root and doing the daily maintenance to keep it at bay.

Or when things get really bad, and our lives need a “deep clean” – we just get it done. We scrub the baseboards and the corners and the back of the fridge.

Instead of sitting with the weight of feeling dirty, we realize we have the agency to start casting off that weight and moving toward freedom and cleanliness. We rely fully upon the Savior for his cleansing power, but we have the agency to START that process.

Little sins, big sins, bad habits, weaknesses…

It’s an everyday maintenance.

And I think that when we realize this, it makes the Sacrament that much more meaningful.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Procrastination cleaning tips first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.