Ruling My Domain

This year I'm participating in a Bible study called the "Five Aspects of Woman." So far, I've learned that God created me to rule, subdue and produce within the domain (sphere of authority) that He has given me. My domain includes the things for which I'm responsible in my household. The concept of "ruling my domain" gave me the final push I needed to finally (after several years) create a written schedule.

This past summer, I studied the book "Created to Be His Help Meet" with my sister-in-law and a friend. One of the most convicting parts of the book for me was when Mrs. Pearl asked if there was anything around the house that I could do that would relieve some of my husband's burden. Mrs. Pearl said that this category could even include things that I thought my husband should do.

Immediately our back yard shed came to my mind. It's been a mess since the day we moved, when we literally just threw things in there. It's been a thorn in Matt's side ever since, but he just hasn't had a large enough block of time to commit to the project. Even though I had previously thought Matt should deal with the shed because it has all the "man stuff" in it, I realized that I was perfectly capable of cleaning it myself. Yuck! Quite frankly, that task could not have been lower on my priority list. I put it off all summer. Then I learned the concept of "ruling my domain" in my Bible study. God has given me authority to make decisions about the stuff I own, where to put it, whether to keep it or get rid of it. I knew it was time to tackle the shed (and stepping in a bag of fertilizer while trying to retrieve something I needed was also a good motivator).
This past Tuesday, the kids and I cleaned the shed. Elizabeth watched the littles inside the house while Paul, Grace and myself worked on getting the shed in order. We took everything out and laid it on the lawn and then sorted, discarded and reorganized it all. We gave the shed a good sweeping and organized all the cupboards and shelves. I even separated all the plumbing supplies from the electrical supplies (I think) and hung up all the garden tools. Paul was pretty impressed that I could hammer a nail.
We found a dead mouse and even Paul, who is usually quite eager to deal with anything dead or gross, refused to touch it. But since I am "Mistress of my Domain," I mustered up the courage and got the thing into the garbage. I even killed a Black Widow spider. I was in the "ruling my domain" groove.

The shed project took us the better part of the day to complete, but we all felt good about our accomplishment when we were done. The kids made a big production of showing the newly cleaned shed to Daddy after dinner that night. I think he was pretty stunned. He was also very pleased. "I can't believe you guys did this," he said.
Matt has been working extra hard and dealing with a lot of stress at work lately. Our shed cleaning project was a way for the kids and me to show Matt how much we love and appreciate him. And now I must end this post because I have quite a bit more ruling of my domain to do and according to my schedule, Saturday is project day, so I'd better get to it.