Bathroom renovation update
July 3, 2025By Jeff Becraft
There are two bathrooms in our house. There’s one in the hallway, and there’s one in our bedroom. As the kids were growing up, they used the bathroom in the hallway and Brenda and I used the bathroom in our room. When the kids moved out, Brenda took over the hallway bathroom and that became her bathroom, and then the bathroom in our room was my bathroom.
Brenda painted her bathroom. She put flowers in her bathroom. She put special lights in her bathroom. She decorated her bathroom so it looks really nice and is refreshing to walk into.
I clean my bathroom… sometimes.
Leading up to the middle of June, I had not cleaned it very much. I was in training. I was getting ready for a retreat with some kids. Now, in the guys’ dorm we’ve got guys from five years old all the way up to elderly people,… and there’s a whole slew of us. As the week goes on, the guys’ bathroom becomes a hazmat environment.
So to get ready for this, I am in training. You just don’t stroll on to the summit of Everest. Which means I’m not cleaning my bathroom.
What Brenda will do is she will clean her bathroom and then set the cleaning supplies on the sink in my bathroom. But I was in training… and so the cleaning supplies just sat there on the sink counter. Each week the cleaning supplies began to increase and there were more and more cleaning supplies appearing on my counter. It eventually got to a point where you couldn’t even put anything else on my sink.
This is what is called nonverbal communication.
Even though I was in training and getting ready for a week with a bunch of guys in a hazmat environment, I decided that I would clean my bathroom. This was motivated by one thing… I was looking for a way that I could show love to my wife and even though I am a bear of very little brain, I could sense this was important to her. I appreciate her patience with me. The effect a woman has on a man…
Interestingly enough, the transcribing app that I used for this article labeled this “Bathroom renovation update.” I guess when you haven’t cleaned your bathroom for several weeks, that is what it gets called.
Jeff Becraft is the Director of Our Place of Hope and the Director Emeritus for Youth Corps and has dedicated much of his life to helping shift the vision of people’s lives. Our Place of Hope is a paradigm shift for people living with mental illness that encourages them to regain meaning, purpose, and hope for their lives. You can connect with Jeff at [email protected].