Collaboration in the Laundry Department (07/28/2026)

When my children were small (ages 1, 2, and 3), I did laundry every day. When my children were teens (16, 17, and 18), I still needed to do laundry every day. Then came the “empty nest,” and laundry moved to twice a week. On that laundry schedule, my husband and I have learned the necessity of collaborating with one another. You see, my husband has favorites, and if he misses laundry day, he either must wear his favorites dirty or do without his favorites. Understanding this, I always announce the night before that the next day will be laundry day. It’s a win-win. He gets his favorites back and I have a full load. Works for us.

Collaboration, as I understand it, is a necessity in our world that I don’t think is properly understood or pursued. It involves communication and cooperation with others. I must communicate my plans with my husband, and he must cooperate with my plans for both of us to feel good at the end of the day when I turn out the laundry room light. Collaboration also means that we labor together. He brings the baskets to the laundry room; I run the machines and do the folding and hanging. Wa-la, clean clothes. It’s not such a chore because it is shared.

Last night as I watched the evening news before bedtime, I realized that true collaboration is missing in our world to a large extent. Instead of good communication followed up with earnest cooperation and people laboring together to address common needs, we seem to be obsessed with competition which leads to division rather than unity of purpose. How do we reclaim our understanding of stewarding the world given to us by our LORD without also reclaiming our obligation to collaborate with one another for the good of one another?

Each of us is given life with graced gifts to be spent for real goodness. While some gifts may appear to be more individual in nature such as painting and writing, these expressions are meant to be shared to illuminate and inspire. As we come to know our loving LORD and ourselves within the LORD’s divine design, we come to realize that the LORD’s love compels us outward to share, to help, to care, to love.

As Christians, following in the footsteps of our Savior, we know that we are called to labor together for Christ’s mission and that we are to live lives of love expressed through word and deed, through work and rest. We recognize that each of us has a responsibility to proclaim the good news either in words or in actions. But we also get Jesus’ command to the disciples in the closing chapter of John when He tells them to bring some of their fish. We have been given gifts; we are called to use them together.

This morning as I blog, my prayer is that we who are on the way in faith, hope, and love will seek prayerfully to discern the LORD’s desires for us this day and work together, sisters and brothers, to achieve that will. It is my hope that as we go forward, we will communicate encouragement and we will cooperate with others in the field of goodness who are seeking to selflessly share their moments and gifts. And finally, it is my hope that we will recover our ability to collaborate with one another in bringing the good news not only to others minds and hearts but into reality in our world.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.