Praise God for Dirty Dishes

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).

The scene is a familiar one. Taxed by the day he has just waded through, a father passes over the threshold of his home into an evening he may not have exactly welcomed had the choice been his—but, it’s one that he’s come to expect more and more these days.

He looks around to survey the spectacle before him: the dirty dishes are piled high, such that Babel would blush at its heights; dinner has not been started, much less completed; clothes and garments litter the floor, as though some silent rapture has taken place without him; and from the other room there rings a cacophony of sounds and squeals and—

“I’m home!” the wide-eyed man declares.

Then—then every care and mounting temptation to flee back to the relative peace of his car slips away as the pitter-patter of bare, squishy feet round the corner. A smile dances upon a small, chubby face bearing a toothy grin, reflecting your own, followed by more squeals and heightened laughter from everyone in the room as the family gathers to welcome you.

You’re home. The scene is a familiar one, even a mundane one, and sometimes even a frustrating one—but you wouldn’t trade it for anything else in all the world. Out there, Paradise has been lost; within these walls, however, you and your family are taking it back inch by sacred inch.

Praise God for dirty dishes. Indeed, the Lord in His kindness has blessed you with dishes and not just a single dish. Where there are many dishes there are many mouths; many to love, serve, and provide for. And more than that, God delights to dirty those dishes day in and day out with all manner of provisions and patrons. Clean dishes are fine and well and good for decoration, but far better they be filled and dirtied with food, no matter how simple. For, “Better is a little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble with it. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it” (Proverbs 15:16-17).

Praise God for dinners waiting to be made. Better a dinner waiting to be made than no dinner at all. What a joy that we can retreat from the howling winds of this world into the warmth of hearth and home to serve and love those whom the Lord has entrusted into our care, be it only for a season. Praise God for emptying refrigerators and energy levels, for this often speaks to lives and families which are anything but empty. And even in the simplest of meals—“Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11)—we are reminded of Him who has not only provided the bread, but who is Himself our Daily Bread: “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst’” (John 6:35).

Praise God for noisy households. Far better a noisy home than one with no noise at all. Sounds and squeals and crying and laughter and chatter are signs of life, even as the rustling of leaves signal vitality in the tree whose branches they dress. And though the noise is often trailed by mess and disorder—be it dirty dishes, strewn clothing, toys, or crumbs—there will come a time when this season will also fade into another, just as all the others leading into it have come and gone in equal measure. For the time being, however, let us joyfully embrace the season of life we find ourselves in; the very season which we, doubtless, prayed for and sought after with tears only a few years prior.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). A time to pick up dirty clothes, to wash them and mend them, and a time to fold them away into storage for the last and final time; a time to cook for few, then many, and then only for a few once again; a time for dirty dishes, and a time to come, perhaps, for only a dirty dish.

While this season of life persists, whatever it may look like, be sure to praise God for your dirty dishes, whatever they may be, and all the countless blessings which make them so.

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Photo by Gaurav Sharma, Unsplash

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