Sorting The Laundry

Mom taught me how to do the laundry out of necessity. As a fresh widow who went to work full-time to support a household of dependents, at thirteen, I became the fill-in homemaker. 

I vividly remember my first lesson in doing the laundry. We stood in the chilly room located in a corner of the basement where the washer and dryer took up their residence. On the concrete floor, off to the side, lay a large mound of dirty clothes. 

Everyone tended to fling their grass-stained jeans, ring around the collar shirts, and dirt encrusted socks into one massive pile in the laundry room and then shut and latch the door behind them. I was overwhelmed by what I saw as my task. 

The mound of clothes was a mass of jumbled colors, patterns and materials. Plaid shirts mixed with pastel skirts, solid black t-shirts entangled with pink and white striped dressy pants, and lacey underwear atop heavy jeans. Not only was there a mixture of colors, patterns and material but various odors mingled together and glided through the air and went up my nose. 

There was the smell of grease from the clothes my brother wore to the fast food restaurant where he worked, the stale scent of my mother’s perfume she generously doused herself with before going to work and the stench of musty socks my little brother wore until they took on the shape of his foot, stiffened by sweat and dirt. Yet, none of this seemed to phase mom’s intention of showing me how to get the laundry done. 

She proceeded to bend down, lean her left elbow on her left bent knee and reached toward the mound of clutter. She talked and tossed clothes at the same time. 

“Never mix the whites with the darks. Always wash the whites in hot water, darks in cold,” came her instructions. I made a mental note while remaining in my fixed position. There was no way I was going to make contact with my brothers’ socks or underwear. 

“Keep the heavy things separate from the lighter things. Don’t put my bras in with anybody’s jeans.” 

I nodded and noticed. The once massive pile was no longer one massive pile. Instead, Mom had sorted it out into many smaller piles. White bras and lacey underwear, jeans and sweatshirts, dress pants and blouses and crusty socks with cotton boxer shorts. In a short amount of time, I’d watched her do the impossible. She’d sorted the dirty laundry into separate, orderly and manageable loads that could be put into the washer. 

Sorting Our Laundry

Unforgiveness is a little bit like one massive heap of dirty laundry. Our grudges are mixed with anger, blame entangles with justification, and victim thinking sits on top of denial. Resentments accumulate, hostilities enumerate and excuses culminate. Day in and day out we add to our pile, shut the door and latch it behind us until…

Until the day when we decide to face the massive heap and its odors. Choosing to forgive, like sorting the laundry, we take the thoughts that have culminated around our hurt and put them into orderly piles. Then, with one manageable mound at a time, we soak them with truth. 

When we choose to forgive, we don’t mix the past hurt with the present action of forgiving.  Instead, we acknowledge whatever went wrong and take responsibility for whatever we can do to make things right. Forgiveness does not always include reconciliation with whoever wronged us, but forgiveness does include sorting out what we can and cannot do to make amends.

Why Bother?

Why bother sorting our laundry? Taking the time to sort our laundry helps us to get our laundry done.

You can read the whole story of my journey to forgiveness in my book, A Heart’s Journey To Forgiveness found at Redemption Press and Amazon. Also, my next Emotional Healing Through Forgiveness© workshop is slated for Sunday, April 26 from 4-7 p.m at the YMCA in Sandpoint, Idaho.