Messes

Confession time: I'm a neurotic mess with OCD-tendencies when it comes to cleanliness. I'm a bit of a neatnik. I like my house picked up and put together. I don't do well with crumbs littering my kitchen floor or dust gathering on my coffee table. I like beds made, pajamas folded and backpacks hung orderly by the door. It's virtually impossible for me to go to bed with toys thrown about my living room, and I can't leave the house in the morning without the beds made. Can. Not.

In my pre-mommy days, this wasn't a problem. My husband is the farthest thing from a slob. (Our neatnik ways might be the only thing we have naturally in common.) Our dogs were outside dogs. (Of the cat we shall not speak. She was the interloper in my perfect world.) (And honestly, she would probably have said the same about me.) When I cleaned the house, it stayed clean -- often for weeks. Since Corey and I both kept crazy hours with our jobs, we just weren't home that much to dirty the place.

Then I had children. And lo, the earth shifted and my world came tumbling apart.

Thankfully, it was a slow tumbling. The first few years, the kids were too little to do much damage. I was able to keep to my religion of cleaning the entire house in a day. I would change the linens, dust every room, do the laundry, clean the kitchen, vacuum, Swiffer, mop, take out the garbage and water the plants in one eight-hour period. For a neatnik, it was a flurry of wonderfulness. At the end of the day, I could sigh with deep satisfaction and survey my sparkling kingdom and pronounce it good. (The sanguine side of me like the routine too, because once the house was clean, I had the other six days of the week to play.)

But now? The kids are older. And darn it, they like to play! And create! And "help" Mommy with her work! And build Thomas the Train villages in my living room and set up the full compliment of Little People in the kitchen.

This means my cleaning might not get finished in one eight-hour period anymore. Or, even worse, that my hard work during that eight-hour period will be undone by the evening of said day by the children I birthed from my very loins.

I was thinking about this last night, as I finished a whirlwind of cleaning. I had just finished picking up toys and hauling them back down to the basement playroom -- when I turned around to see my two older kids carrying (different) toys back up from the playroom so they could scatter them willy-nilly around the living room (which had been turned into a tent city thanks to strategically placed blanket and couch cushions).

My inward neatnik sounded like Charlie Brown who's just been denied the kicking of the football. "ARRRRGGGHHHH!"

But since the baby needed feeding, I was helpless to do anything about the chaos right then. And in hindsight, it was a good thing.

As I sat and nursed sweet little Teyla (sweet, sweet Teyla, who doesn't mess up my house when I've just cleaned it), I listened to Connor and Natalie play together in the living room. There was much laughter and joint decision making and -- yes, just a little bossing. They were having fun together and being creative and doing that "kid" thing that we all want our kids to do.

And I realized -- if I want them to play and imagine and grow, I have to let them make a mess. Messes are more than necessary. They are essential. I wish they could stretch their minds and laugh and create while they are living in little bubbles, unable to touch my pristine house. Then I could have the best of both worlds. I could have it all. But that's not reality. Despite what Martha Stewart and HGTV want me to believe, it's just not possible.

And that got me thinking about how God has made Himself known in my life. When I was younger, I had these perfect, polished plans for my future career. I had rosy, cotton-candy ideas for my marriage. I had it all figured out. I was going to be a passionate, sold-out, adventurous Christian -- who just happened to have a high-powered journalism career, a rock-solid marriage that others would aspire to and a beach house that would be both funky and comfortable.

And then God stepped in. And He messed everything up. Boy did He mess everything up.

Initially, I hated the chaos. I wasn't real fond of the searing pain involved in much of it either. I didn't understand why God couldn't just keep up His end of the bargain. "Remember God? The plan? It was supposed to be neat and clean and perfect. And this? Definitely not neat and clean and perfect. Not a blessing, Lord. Not a blessing."

But eventually, through many tears and many honest days spent on my face before God, I started to see that the messes were necessary. They were necessary for my growth. For my faith. For my soul. They were, in fact, huge blessings, if blessings in disguise.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's this: God knows how to make a good mess, and He knows how to make a mess good.

Which is why I ultimately decided to leave the disaster-that-was-my-living-room last night. Because sometimes the mess is a beautiful thing.

The sanguine side of my temperament would like me to note, for the record, that she rarely has a problem with messes. Nor does she hold such a tight rein on her soul. She welcomes spontaneity, fun, adventure and -- yes -- even chaos. Which is why I'm a slightly conflicted person. Thank you for your time.