Even a laundry room catastrophe can teach a valuable life lesson.

When my oldest son was seventeen, he was assigned to handle the family laundry for an entire week.

Now, with nine people in the household, that’s no small task—especially when, at the time, our laundry room had no folding tables and barely any floor space… unless you were willing to step on the mountains of clothes waiting to be sorted.

(We eventually remodeled to fix the problem, but I share this so you can picture what my son was up against.)

While he was at school—and realizing he was too busy to keep up with it all—I jumped in to help fold and put things away. Every so often, I’d notice something odd: swirly patterns on shirts, faded patches on pants.

I asked him, “Honey, are you using bleach on the colors?”

“No, Mom,” he said. “I’m only using detergent.”

I thought, That’s strange. Maybe the washer was malfunctioning again—maybe it was holding onto bleach from previous loads and releasing it into the colors.

Then, on the last day of his laundry duty, he pulled out one of his favorite shirts. It had been navy. The sleeves were now… light brown.

He exclaimed, “What is going on?! That was one of my favorite shirts!”

“Are you sure you’re not using bleach?” I asked again.

He took me to the laundry room and pointed out the detergent he’d been using. Or at least, what he thought was detergent.

Sure enough, it was bleach.

He had decided the loads would run better with liquid detergent instead of the powder—only to realize, with horror, that what he’d been using was bleach all along.

He had washed an entire week’s worth of laundry for nine people in nothing but bleach.

(No wonder the clothes didn’t have that springtime-fresh scent!)

But here’s what really stuck with me—besides gaining a few new articles of clothing: his mistake didn’t really register until something meaningful to him was affected.

And isn’t that how it works in life?

We might go around unknowingly violating certain principles—maybe even causing pain or problems for others—and yet, until our choices impact something we personally care about, we don’t always pay attention.

But life has a way of getting our attention. It knows how to position us just right, so we finally begin to ask the right questions.

Still, how much better would it be to stay in learning mode? To discover the principles of prosperity and live by them—especially when things are going well—so we can avoid the more painful wake-up calls that force us to learn the lessons we’ve been missing?

So when that inner voice nudges you—pay attention.

If you brush it off, God might just let you “lose your shirt,” literally or figuratively, just to get your attention. Just so you’ll pause, reflect, and finally make the small adjustment He’s been quietly urging you to make. The one that could help you experience life more abundantly.

I believe we get hints first—a gentle whisper, like when I asked my son if he might be doing something wrong. But if we miss those early warnings, we may find ourselves barreling toward an experience we can’t ignore.

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