Your Home or Mine?

Is it just me or does chaos always erupt when you're trying to prepare your home for company? It's always then that the baby starts crying for no apparent reason, I discover we're out of toilet paper and the dog decides he can't digest the twenty-seven mushrooms he ate in the backyard. As a stay-at-home mom, I tend to get my pride all wrapped up in the appearance of our home. Since I'm here all day, it should look like something out of Southern Living all the time, right? Well, as anyone who visited lately can tell you, it doesn't. Not even close. You're lucky if there's a hand towel hanging in the bathroom and you don't trip over the diaper genie log by the front door. The Lord has been dealing with me on this issue a lot lately. I kind of wish He'd stop bringing it up. The question He keeps asking me is "Is this your home, or Mine?" I had to stop and ask myself this last week when I was tempted to turn into a screaming banshee because our guests were due momentarily and there was dog fur on the kitchen floor. The truth is that my guests will be here for a few hours, but my family lives here (with ME) all day, every day. If I make them miserable in order to impress someone else, what have I accomplished? I'm not advocating living in a pigsty but I'm learning to reevaluate my motives on this issue. Maybe someone else can relate. I'm praying I will learn how to "walk in my house with a blameless heart". (Psalm 101:2)