Girls, Don’t Wait as Long as I Did to Start This Habit

It was a few days before Thanksgiving, and I was teaching my high schoolers how to talk about the events of Thanksgiving Day in Spanish. We learned all the food words and how to ask someone to pass the mashed potatoes. We even learned how to say Black Friday and sales fliers in Spanish.

Then I asked, in Spanish, Who will wash the dishes after the meal?

A few boys raised their hands and not a single girl.

I was that girl who never helped with the dishes. In fact, I was that woman who never helped with the dishes.

I was undisciplined in taking care of my kitchen at home, and at someone else’s house the task seemed even more daunting. The meal would end, and I would try to make a great show of helping clear the table. Then I would slink away to the living room, hoping no one would notice.

My guilt was immense, as the Spirit of God pinned me to the wall about this area of my life.

So I prayed, Lord, help me become the woman who gets up and does the dishes.

Maybe doing the dishes isn’t a big deal to you, but it was a decades-long internal struggle with laziness and selfishness for me.

One day I went to my mother-in-law’s, and the meal ended. I prayed a quick, God help me! and then got up and went to the sink. I stayed there until every dish was scrubbed and put away.

The next time we went to my mother-in-law’s house I did the same thing. One visit after another God slowly transformed my habit. Now I go sit down in the living room when the rest of the ladies do, after the work is done.

Let me say this to all the teenage girls and young women out there –our character is revealed when a meal is over and everyone is pushing away from the table. The kind of person we are can be seen by what we immediately do next.

Will we do what we feel like doing, without regard to the labor that needs to be done in the kitchen?

Will we speak ingratitude to the cooks by expecting them to prepare the food and do all the cleanup?

Will we sit and watch TV in the living room and pretend we don’t see the other women sweating over dishwater?

Let me encourage you in this –I didn’t realize what I was missing when I slunk away from helping in the kitchen after a big meal. There is a sweet fellowship among women when they work together on something.

This summer we had a family reunion at my parents’ house in Wyoming, and when the big Fourth of July meal was over I planted myself at the kitchen sink, to face mountains of dishes. My wonderful aunt picked up a dish towel to dry after I rinsed, and what a sweet time we had chatting about life over sudsy water. It was one of my favorite moments of the week.

So let our fingers be pruny, a sign of our inner self-discipline, to be hard working and thoughtful in the kitchen.

Our character is revealed when a meal is over. @McSweeney @Christy_Fitz #servanthood #dishes
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