The Mess We've Made of Things

Disorder is a product of the fall.  I can imagine the world in its blissful state before Adam and Eve ate the fruit.  It was so neat and clean and weedless.  Oh the joy!

I really think that so much of what we do is tied to this- we are always doing doing doing, trying to wipe off, cover over, clean up all of our messes.  And for me, my fallen flesh goes overboard and I try to control too much of my surroundings.  I want things tidy, orderly, nice and neat- you know, a place for everything and everything in its place (and the place I like best for everything is the trash- but that's another issue).  After idol-discovery about five years ago (YES!  It had everything to do with birth of a certain unnamed child), God has really been changing my heart about these things.  Of course, I still love everything in its place (the receptacle), BUT, it doesn't have a grip on my heart like it did before.  Before, if everything was NOT in its place, someone just might find herself seething inside.  And now, when I am especially tired, I fall back into this mode again-- my patience wanes for messy, slow, dirty, gross.  It is in those moments that I will either speak harshly to the culprit (whoever caused the inconvenience), OR, as the case has been nowadays, I pray about my attitude, ask God to help me in the moment to ignore the cause of my concern and then I attack it later- at a more convenient, calm time in a manner appropriate.  

Such serenity in the face of "pandemonium" (my pandemonium is likely not even close to fitting the true definition of the word) did not happen for me at first last night.  After another busy day, we had a t-ball game.  I was preparing mobile dinner for the kids to eat at the park and I realized that I didn't have a parent lined up for snack.  As the team mom, I quickly whipped up a batch of cookies at 4:21PM.  We usually try to leave by 5.  Cookies and dinners were packed and ready at 4:55PM.  But, I was feeling frantic because I really don't like to leave the house in disarray (again, the use of this word is probably not remotely accurate).  Anyway, there were some stray shreds of cheese on the floor, some cookie crumbs on the counter to the right of the oven, and Judah, in his hurry, had dropped some sesame seeds and crumbs of varying size on the dining room rug.  I could have walked out at this point, leaving the mess for later.  But my insistent idol-worshiping heart was growing ever more angry at whoever caused my perfect world to fall into chaos (see my note on "pandemonium" and "disarray").  So guess who got the brunt of my heat?  My poor husband, who had the unmitigated audacity to say, "babe, we gotta go," was truly in for it on this one.  I whipped my head around so fast and shot him the look of death for interfering with my worship (you know, of the idol).  He looked quizzically at me and literally asked, "Is something wrong?"  IS SOMETHING WRONG?!?  COULD HE NOT SEE THE INFINITESIMAL CRUMBS THAT COVERED EVERY SURFACE OF MY WORLD?!?  Apparently not.  And that's when God grabbed a hold of my prone-to-wander heart and reminded me of what matters.  Ugh.  I surrendered- dejected- not because of the state of my house- but because of my easily-entangled flesh.  I left the house, tail tucked precisely where it should have been tucked, riding silently to the game.  

But I actually didn't feel defeated for too long.  Believe it or not, that was victory for me.  When I was feeling like biting off the heads of four little fiends and one larger one, God helped me to remember that I wasn't angry with them- I was angry because I wasn't getting MY WAY, RIGHT AWAY- and therefore, my anger was indirectly directed at Him.  And I was able to capture that, and repent- and actually walk away from the mess.  

My response to the disorder in the universe is to make every effort to clean it up and get it under control.  Another response might be to ignore it all and then become enveloped in it.  Still another response might be to hoard it all, thinking it will give security.  There are so many outlandish, yet creative, fleshly responses, that I think being aware of our own tendencies and understanding the root of those tendencies is the key to victory.  So here I am today, slogging on!