My oldest four children were at their Christian academy, working hard, and I had folded all the piles of clothes that were in the laundry room line-up, waiting to be redistributed. 

My practice is to throw all the socks in a pile for sorting later, then I fold each child’s shirts and pants and stack them all up in neat lines on the dining table in order of age. Then I put up the little kids’ clothes and have the big kids put away their own clothes when they get a chance, usually before we sit down for lunch so we can have our table back. The socks get paired up…eh, eventually.

It crossed my mind on this day that, if i went ahead and put the big kids’ clothes away, too, while they were at school, the table would be clear early…

but immediately following that thought was the regretful realization that, if I did that…if I put their clothes neatly inside their drawers FOR them…they would probably never even know that I did all that laundry! 

CONUNDRUM.

To children, clean clothes magically appear in a cycle in their dresser drawers. Like a Pez dispenser, they pull one set out, and the next clothes pop up in line, except this is a Pez dispenser that has no end. There are clothes and then more clothes and then more clothes and “Hey look! My Baby Yoda shirt that I wore to the woods last week is here again!” Fun!

This is not a sin, for children to not notice our work.

But it can easily annoy us or cause us to feel whiny.

On this day, though, I thought about how my Heavenly Father does things for me every day that I don’t necessarily take time to notice. He ensures we have water enough for our needs and even comforts. He makes the sun come up and calls out the stars. He provides chickens that give us a fresh crop of eggs pretty much every day.

Like clockwork. Whether I notice it that day or not. Whether I say thanks or not.

I’m living in my own Pez dispenser world, and it’s embarrassing how rarely I notice that.

This isn’t a treatise on never teaching your children to help with the laundry. It’s just something to tuck away for the next time you DO find yourself doing something that no one will notice.

It’s not bad that they didn’t notice and it’s likely not a sin. It just is what it is, and when we put the clothes away anyway, with love and thankfulness, we are doing something that God does for us every day of our lives.

Anyway you slice it, that’s a privilege.