Spring Cleaning

This time of year many people do a spring cleaning of their homes.  My family deleavens our home.  For anyone who does not know what that means, it means that room by room and crumb by crumb any bread products with leavening (yeast or baking soda, etc) are removed from the house.  We move furniture and vacuum and sweep.  We empty out bags and clean out the vacuums after using them.  We quarantine ourselves in the kitchen to eat for a good week or two once the rest of the house has been deleavened so that all that is left to clean is the kitchen.  Then we clean the kitchen cupboard by cupboard and drawer by drawer, etc.

Why do we do this?  First and foremost it is for the Days of Unleavened Bread.  There are spiritual lessons to be learned from the physical deleavening process.  Secondly, for my family, one reason we are extra thorough is the practicality of a deep cleaning the home once a year.  Some areas would never be cleaned (like behind the couch or under our bed) if we did not move them and clean those areas this time of year.  My son helped last year to clean the pantry when he was one year old.  This year he helped vacuum around the home and even vacuumed one of his car seats.  I love to see his willing attitude.

"What are the Days of Unleavened Bread?", you may ask. They are a week long festival of God (Lev 23), one of His 7 festivals.  It is a week of not eating leavening and a week of eating unleavened bread.  They begin with a Holy Day and end with a Holy Day and every year we are reminded that leavening represents sin and that it is a continual process to consciously choose to put sin out of our lives.  As we remove leavening which is actually quite an easy process, though time intensive, so we must remove sin which is much harder in execution and also a time consuming process, truly a life long process.

The Days of Unleavened Bread end tomorrow.  I have been reflecting on messages I have heard, on the deleavening process and on the eating of unleavened bread throughout this last week.  These days are such a blessing from God!  They give us time to draw closer to God, time to spend with family and church brethren, time to reflect on God's plan for humanity and I am always sad when they end, but excited for the next Holy Day which will be Pentecost.

Singing off...His mercy never fails.
Gina

This was the last of our leavening to eat/remove from the house: