Should I Take This Literally?

[Youngestdaughter]

OK. I want to make it clear that I'm a woman of faith but not delusional. My family is going through a hard time: financial problems putting stress on my marriage, car broke down, youngest leaving home etc. Well, lately, every time I pray the same sentence goes through my mind. "Get your house in order." Again, it's not like it's coming through my microwave. Just the sentence keeps going through my head. And I take it to mean my actual house which is clean but cluttered as I am pretty powerless to fix anything else. Ive cleaned out storage closets and other rooms we don't use. But I can't help but wonder why God would care about the state of my house. Thoughts?

[E-mc2]

I can't help but wonder why God would care about the state of my house. Thoughts?

 

Sometimes I get behind in my responsibilities too. Things can get piled up in life pretty quickly. It always feels good to get my house (life in general) back in order. When I don't have that list of mundane things to do screaming inside my head I can then focus on more important things.

 

I'm not a person of faith like you are but we experience the same thing.

[FMW]

The phrase generally isn't used literally. It means see where you have areas of improvement needed, in how you are handling things, what you are doing, how you are conducting your life, choices you make, etc. You are not powerless - maybe limited and constrained, but never powerless. Figure out what you CAN do to improve things.

 

But I'm thinking if God was really talking to you he wouldn't do it with a phrase you wouldn't understand.

[preraph]

It might not be God. It might be some sort of spirit guide or someone you know who has passed. I'm not sure if you take it literally but that would be a good place to start if your house is in disorder. A disordered house can often reflect a troubled person and there are those who say it attracts bad energy. Get your house in order is also a saying that is not literal but means to get your life in order and your business in order, which would include your house but other things as well. It's something that's often said when there might be a problem on the horizon that the person is going to need to devote all their attention to and they need to be ready.

 

I'd certainly start with the house and just get your whole life organized as possible.

[d0nnivain]

Ge your house in order is not literal but it can be. In this context I think it may be about focusing on the things you can control.

 

I know when I am depressed & anxious, my house turns into a wreck because I don't have the emotional wherewithal to clean. I that same vain, there is the idea that if you want to have a good day, start by making your bed in the morning.

 

So I think here, you are getting the message to take affirmative steps to fix what you can. For example if you are having financial problems, maybe it's time to balance that checkbook, make a budget or get a new job or a PT job to supplement income. When you take action, things will improve.

[preraph]

I will say in my limited experiences, spirit messages sometimes aren't the exact right language. Once I was meditating and asked if anyone wanted to tell me something, and it said, "Scrapbook." I'm not the scrapbooking sort, but I had just recently inherited a notebook of recipes plus I have my own, and I knew that was what it meant. And it was a great experience creating notebooks of the recipes. Pretty sure that was a relative's spirit, maybe my mom. Also, spirits may give you visual.

 

The last three or so days, I've had an unfounded feeling like I was about to have something really good happen that would help me out of some of my financial problems. It had me looking into all sorts of things. It wasn't impending doom. It was impending optimism, and I get it once in awhile but rarely that strong for that long a time -- and no, usually nothing great comes of it.

 

So I was just watching news last night and I got a visual photo in my head of Ron Howard as Richie Cunningham in his high school letter jacket (and there were a couple others around him but I didn't see their details) and so the message was "Happy Days." I feel something might be in the wind, but I've thought so before.

 

I did get a Tweet reply from a guy who replied to a property tax comment and told me a tip about reverse mortgage and getting life insurance to cover the repairs after you die (you have to keep the property up for the financier), so it's something I'm thinking about mulling over seriously.

 

But I keep hoping it's my used car part finally found....my immediate disaster at hand.

[Justanaverageguy]

Sometimes when we have a lot of "noise" and "chaos" in the external world - we can get lost in worries and stress. Focusing on the negative events outside us. A simple but effective strategy to ground us and bring a sense of order back to our lives is to start with the small things directly in front of us.

 

Focus on and successful completion of even a simple task reminds us that no matter how stressful or crazy situations around us might seem - if we just focus on the next small task in front of us we will get through it and be ok.

 

Couple if inspired talks that discuss how small seemingly unimportant tasks can make a big difference to how we live our lives.

 

Edited April 30, 2019 by Justanaverageguy

[Youngestdaughter]

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful responses. I took a few days off to reflect. The things I am controlling, I am. But I see my stepson I raised since he was 4 about to graduate knowing his father will try to stop him like my in-laws tried to control him and my boy rebelling just like he did....SO, I have been cleaning and organizing and I do feel better. I'm fascinated by neuroplasticity, the science of changing the actual structure of one's brain to be happier. And chaos is the enemy of a well functioning brain. We are hard wired to find paths and patterns. And, I think having everything in place is the first step to everything falling into place. As far as my son abd his father, pray for us!

[todreaminblue]

for me an orderly house is having people in my house happy and on track..my my kids doing the right thing, me doing the right thing.........i can have a messy home but things be in order.....if my kids are thoughtful happy and compassionate and kind in helping others...then they will remember to help me out a bit with housework or if i ask them to do dishes they would help me...Ima working on it too........:0)..the first thing for me is accepting what i cannot change in my kids and praising them when they do the right thing......deb

[alphamale]

in this instance God is not talking about your place of residence. he/she is talking about your head which is the house of your soul.

[preraph]

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful responses. I took a few days off to reflect. The things I am controlling, I am. But I see my stepson I raised since he was 4 about to graduate knowing his father will try to stop him like my in-laws tried to control him and my boy rebelling just like he did....SO, I have been cleaning and organizing and I do feel better. I'm fascinated by neuroplasticity, the science of changing the actual structure of one's brain to be happier. And chaos is the enemy of a well functioning brain. We are hard wired to find paths and patterns. And, I think having everything in place is the first step to everything falling into place. As far as my son abd his father, pray for us!

 

I agree! Having been through PTSD I know your brain can get stuck like a broken record. I felt at the time like it was in a deep thought rut. It takes deliberately filling it with new better stuff like doing happier things and learning new things to begin to overwrite that and remap (and I'm using these words just from how it felt to me mainly).

 

Learn new things. For example, during my worst days I at least took the opportunity to volunteer at the zoo, took their courses, learning things, and loved being around the animals, so I think that was the right thing to do for me.

 

To try to break an association problem where I couldn't listen to my favorite music from a certain era, something very important to me, because the associations only made the PTSD worse and me sadder, I went to a peaceful favorite place that was devoid of music associations for me and made myself listen to it there, away from home entirely. I went and stayed at the lodge of a wildlife park in the hills and drove my car into the river where it crossed the road and sat surrounded by white antelope and put my favorite album on. I hoped that the pain would at least be counterbalanced by the peace and beauty of this place.

 

There are things you can do to try to make new neural pathways and try to pave over that rut.

[mark clemson]

OK. I want to make it clear that I'm a woman of faith but not delusional. My family is going through a hard time: financial problems putting stress on my marriage, car broke down, youngest leaving home etc. Well, lately, every time I pray the same sentence goes through my mind. "Get your house in order." ... Thoughts?

 

 

There is an expression "get your financial house in order". Perhaps your recurring sub-vocalization refers to that and the link between the financial difficulties and the marital stress.