04 May Our Beautiful Messes

I look around my house and there are piles everywhere. Piles of clothes. Piles of toys. Piles of books. There is a corner full of stuffed animals from our “puppet party time.” There are things like spatulas mixed in with an alarm clock and a toy truck in my son’s toy box (don’t ask). When I actually take a moment to assess the current situation, my order-loving nature wants to break out in hives. So I cope temporarily with deep breathing exercises.

There is something wonderful and therapeutic to be said for spring cleaning. I embrace the task wholeheartedly every year with a spirit of passion and delight. I wish I could say that our home is already so organized our “spring cleaning” consists of a day of purging and re-organizing a bit…but it doesn’t. In fact, it can take me several weeks to go through each room of our home and apply the lessons I learned from the awesome book Simplicity Parenting that I wrote about last year.

I have a little secret to share with you today: Even after my several week purge and organization process has commenced and I sit back with a glass of kombucha and a sigh of relief…there will still be messes happening all around me.

Here’s my reality: There are messes happening all around me every day because there are people living in my house. Crazy, I know!

People make messes. I make messes. Even if my kids have three wooden toys and that’s it (which isn’t the case), there are things like laundry and everything pertaining to making, eating, and cleaning up meals that bear witness to the life that is happening all around us.

Our Beautiful, Messy Lives

For one brief period of time in the last ten years, My house stayed clean for two whole weeks when my in-laws graciously took our three girls to stay with them while I was recovering from the birth of our son.

For one thing, It was eerily quiet in the house (don’t get me wrong – I soaked it up!). Also, I had someone come to clean the house and we were shocked when we observed how it just stayed clean. My husband and I both were in a state of awe over the whole experience.

But guess what? Even while it was a beautiful thing while it lasted, the delight I took in the serenity and cleanliness of our home was outweighed by something greater – a deep desire to have my girls back in our home – laughing, running around, and yes, making messes.

Where there is life (beautiful, creative, vibrant life!) happening in your home, there will be messes. And while yes, we should seek to keep our homes clean and tidy as we are able, let’s not let our longing for order keep us from missing out on the beautiful life that is happening all around us.

There is much we can discover about God from visiting and living in quiet, serene, orderly places. And yet there is also much of God’s presence to be found in the midst of the messy places and parts of our lives.

Lord, we stand in the midst of our beautiful, messy lives and give thanks to you for all of it. Open our eyes to see the many evidences of your glory that are hidden within mud puddles, garden beds, boxes of crayons, spilled milk, and piles up dress-up clothes. We thank you for the abundant, exuberant, effervescent life happening all around us.