Motherhood is messy! In the literal sense, like the fact that by 10am there is some type of unidentifiable goo on my shirt (food, snot, who knows!), but also in a I'm-trying-to-be-the-great-mom-I-want-to-be-can't-figure-it-out...kind of way. Look, life is messy! I get fed up when my plans or good intentions get "messed up". Or I planned to be patient and talk in a soft voice to my daughter but find myself getting super irritated and want to punch my pillow out of stuffing! And it feels messy, like I've lost control. Nothing is in order, the laundry is lingering in the hallway with a desperate longing to be cleaned (since it's been a week and a half), I'm wearing the same thing 2 days in a row (because I slept in what I wore the day before!), breakfast dishes are staring at me from the dining room table while I make dinner, and I feel like I've been disciplining for the same repeated offense all day long! I feel messy inside and out.
Messy is good! It gets a bad rep. We attribute messy to assuming there was a right way for something NOT to be messy (except a child's bedroom, no exception there!). But I think messy means it's an opportunity to explore, to discover, to find new ways to do things. Messy means it's all out there and there's nothing to hide and nothing to do except LIVE! Freedom to lower expectations, create new ones, to worry less, be inventive, BE.IN.THE.MOMENT!
I have a hard time when things aren't in order. When I don't have control. When I fear the unknowns, it robs my joy of today. Today in my relationship with God. Today with my husband. Today with my children. God promises to take care of us! (Matt. 6:26). He never promised the American dream. And it's a hard, messy thing to entrust my life and the life of my family to God. It's a scary thing. But when I think about it, Christ dieing on the cross was messy. Yes, physically, but so much more than that WE messed up Gods original plan in the beginning...in the garden. It wasn't supposed to be like this. But through our mess of things, HE changed it all. He loved us enough to get his hands dirty, to step into the mess and rescue us from it. Beauty from ashes. The cross is our mess, but the empty tomb is our mess turned into hope!
I'm finding joy through the mess of life. There's nothing I love more than seeing my kids dirty from head to toe...because it means they jumped in, with everything they have and experienced what life had to offer now, no fear. I can't do that alone, but I can do it with Christ. With His grace and strength. Get dirty. Get messy. Don't worry about tomorrow for tomorrow has it's own worries (Matt. 6:34)
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