Mess

There are dishes in my sink, clothes on my floor, papers on my desk.

But I want to write. I need to write. Is that okay?

I'm thinking of a million things I should be doing instead. Yet whenever I start working on the list, I only get through 32 of those million things instead of the whole list and then I never get to write.

So tonight I left it all and escaped to the outdoors. I'm writing before the dirty dishes and the piles of clothes and the paper messes.

I hear the nagging voice of perfectionism inside me but I choose to ignore it tonight. I never satisfy it anyway.

I've been in a childish mood today. Can you tell? I'd love to blame it on spiritual warfare and a busy schedule and people who rub me the wrong way...but you know...I really think it's just me. In the end, it's where I'm choosing to focus my thoughts (Philippians 4:8). And I'm not gonna lie, you guys. I'm choosing to be childish. With eyes narrowed and lips pouting, I want to whine about an imperfect life-- of busyness and a never-ending schedule, about juggling two jobs and burnout from ministering to pregnancy test clients, about my own body that doesn't work right with P.C.O.S.--plus that pesky fractured thumb, about a messy house, about relationship tensions and comparing myself to others who have five kids by my age. (Did you notice I'm getting my whine out anyway? Let's have some cheese and cheers, shall we??)

But really. I pause. I breathe deep. I let the breeze tickle my face. I hear that undauntedly cheerful bird chirping. I feel Brogan's fur against my leg as he curls up next to me. I think about a family who loves me. A good man who puts up with my moodiness lately. Of girlfriends who speak truth to me when others pull me down.

I breathe out.

I still feel the weight of my imperfection. Some days I'm convinced that life, that grace, that God has taught me to surrender, to let go of control and perfectionism. At best, I'm humbly thankful and at worst I'm subtly proud of it.

Then I enter a new season with new challenges. With new opportunities to let go, to trust more fully, to surrender more gracefully.

And these hands just grip so tightly.

I grasp for a semblance of control when all spins wildly about me. I can't do it all. So why does that make me feel like a failure?

When will I learn to step back and look at things in the light of Christ, in the light of eternity?

Can I come to Him with hands full of this stuff? Can I drag stuff with me if I admit I need His help in letting go?

Will He transform me from childish...to childlike?