No, this isn't Toby. But it sure looks like him!
There are some phases of life that are all about cleaning up messes. Oh, they are beautiful phases — make no mistake — but they are so messy. Babies create nothing but messes, which is hard to understand since they can’t even move around on their own power! Toddlers expand that mess-making to an artform. As the kids get older, their messes get, well, messier. Your house may stay cleaner, but oh there are so many other kinds of messes. All of them, however, are messes that are important to becoming the grown-up they were meant to be. And as parents, we scurry about trying to clean up the messes and teach the principles that we need to keep life running smoothly. We pick up the toys, we do the laundry, we wipe the bottoms, we listen to the late night chats.
There are other phases of life that are all about creating messes. Those are the times we watch our kids step out in a burst of courage to a project that may, or may not, be over their head. They are the times that we feel God stirring in our souls to create something new, and so we try.
Lately, my house has been full of mess-creating. It’s just one of those phases. We’ve added two hedgehogs to our animal repertoire. And a turtle, who has recently disappeared (that’s a long story…well, not so long but still…). On Wednesday my daughter Jillian is expecting the delivery of a micro teacup poodle. All these new residents came with their “STUFF. And we’re also hosting a wonderful graduation party on Saturday for Laurie, the superbly crafty girl who has been living with us while she finished up that degree. Laurie’s party is exploding all around us and onto nearly every available surface, although the OCD among us tend to coral the mess once in awhile so we can breathe. It’s all about making glorious messes.
Today, in church, I was thinking the same thing. As the body of Christ, part of our creative nature comes out in making and cleaning messes, doesn’t it? We try one thing for a season, then sense the Spirit prompting us to switch directions and make adjustments. We give each other the freedom to make a creative mess in our lives and stand in awe when — once in a blue moon — God creates something that leaves us breathless.
Sometimes, of course, we are breathless but more in that gasping for breath how am I going to survive kind of way. And that’s ok, too. We step out and start that Bible study for women we don’t even know only to find ourselves swinging in the breeze hoping someone comes. We let a friend down and realize we need to apologize before our relationship suffers. Perhaps we ( and I mean this in a general sense…certainly not me…) even lose our patience with the messes other people are creating faster than we can clean them up!
In the last few days I’ve come to really appreciate the whole cycle of making a mess and creating. I’m seeing God work out his image in us in ways I never would have been able to plan on my own. I see it in my friends; I see it in my own little family. It’s making me smile.
Life is so messy!
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Reminds me of Rick McKinley’s book, This Beautiful Mess. Have you read it? Loved this post, Marla!
As is so often the case, what may seem like a mess to us is part of God’s perfect plan for our life. “And all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well..” Julian of Norwich