Sacred Laundry Days: How Missing Socks Taught Me to Pray
Laundry is a funny thing. Week after week, day after day, year after year the basket fills up and must be “done.”
Years ago when our home was filled with little people, socks were my wash day nemesis. Seldom was there a week when a match was found to every sock in the basket. Each week random renegades appeared who didn’t have a sock buddy.
My answer to the missing socks was to simply have a basket in the laundry room where all the solo socks went as they waited for their buddies to show up. They may have been hiding under a bed, knotted in the bed sheets or stuck in a shoe. Some showed up rather quickly, while others were a long time coming!
On occasion I would pull out the sock basket, and begin to sort through them. It often took time to pair them back up and over time, as I did this somewhat tedious chore, the Lord began to nudge me ever so gently to pray for the ones who wore those socks.
Lord, direct their steps.
Lord, protect them wherever they go.
Lord, help me love them well when they walk away.
Lord, help me to trust you when your path for them feels different than mine.
My prayers were often just a few words said for my people. Nothing fancy.
Other times, they were said with tears running down my face.
Eventually, my sock day prayers carried over into ordinary wash days and they became a sacred place of sorts to pray for my family. God began to whisper hope and grace to me as a young wife and mama who never felt she was doing enough.
I began to understand that prayer isn’t limited to knees bent and hands folded – it’s more about talking with God throughout our day, from rising to lying down. In loads of laundry, in missing socks, in all the ordinary moments that make up a life of loving others.
I am grateful for the grace of God in the busy, messy parts of my life, and I am thankful he is still and always teaching me that prayer is less about what I “should” do, but rather what I can do.
Through the years, those missing socks taught me to pray for my family, anchoring me through hard and difficult days I could not have imagined. And through it all, God’s goodness remained constant, showing up in the most unexpected places – even a basket of mismatched socks.
Love shows up in these small moments. Like the patient work of matching socks and lifting up prayers, love persists through the years. As Paul reminds us in I Corinthians 13, love is patient and kind. It does not insist on being right, but bears all things, hopes all things… love never fails. Just like those quiet prayers over laundry baskets, week after week, year after year.
What ordinary moment in your day – folding laundry, washing dishes, or tending your garden – could become your own sacred space for prayer?
Friend, God is waiting to meet you there, in the beautiful ordinary of your everyday life.
Blessings –
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