Garbage Days

Mondays are our designated garbage days.

For the record, taking out the garbage is THE LEAST favorite chore in our house. My children murmur without hesitation when it is their turn to empty and line garbages and take the cans out to the street. . . Which, I don't quite know why. Garbage duty is less time consuming than doing dishes, much more pleasant than cleaning toilets, and is so much easier than making PB&J sandwiches.

And today is Monday.

And it snowed last night.

Being it the 2nd day of the New Year and "technically" considered a holiday in some parts, I didn't know if today the garbage truck was coming around this morning. But, by 9:00 a.m. I decided it would be a good idea to place the garbage and recycling cans at the curb just in case . . . because all four of them were plumb full.

After shoveling snow in order to get the cans to the curb, I realized that I hadn't checked any of the trash cans in the house. And suddenly, those murmuring words that I often always hear my children gargle when it's their turn for garbage duty entered into my mind: "I don't really want to go around and gather garbages and then go outside again and brave the cold! If I wait long enough then I can get someone else to do the dirty garbage work! Why do I always get stuck with garbage on cold, snowy days?" The excuses went on and on . . .

Oh, the thoughts make reason stare!

And because I really don't like reason staring me in the face, I decided I would go around the house and empty trash cans whether I wanted to or not! As I did, the number of garbage bags increased with every room I entered. And as the garbage kept accumulating, I began my pondering on the importance of daily repentance and the cleansing power of partaking weekly of the sacrament.

Can't I see that waiting to take out the trash even later today only means I hold on to it for another week?

Why is allowing last year's garbage (sins) to linger just one more day in my house acceptable?

When it comes right down to it, the only person who can take out my garbage is ME!

I ended up with five--FIVE--big bags of garbage to add to the already full cans at the curb.

Oh, how grateful I am for the blessings of the sacrament of being able to remit sin, to clean my soul, and to realign myself with God on a regular and weekly basis.

And today, I was profoundly reminded that, if done correctly, my personal, designated, put out-my- spiritual-trash-canon-the-curb-days is on Sunday, when I partake of the sacrament.