messy rooms

Today was stressful for me. I rushed with the normal Thursday morning routine of making breakfast, packing lunches, changing kids' clothes, and asking (hate to admit...ordering) all the kids to hop in the van, "or we'll be late!"

Don't mornings sound pleasant in this neck of the woods?

To add to the stress, I was prepping for speaking at MOPS (Mothers of Pre-schoolers). Although I am used to speaking in front of an audience due to my teaching days, there is ONE MAJOR difference. Back in the day, they were 6 years old. 6 year olds tend to think you're pretty much a rock star no matter what you say.

Even though I knew the women and knew that I was in gentle hands, getting up in front of a room of grown ups is intimidating. Unless you're my awesome friend, Mandy. In moments like today, I still feel like I'm in 5th grade giving a speech on how to wrap a present. Anyone else ever feel like a kid trapped in an adult body?

Anyway, I'm on a street going no where. Let me rein it in.

After sharing with the welcoming ladies, I headed home. I walked in my house and I felt my head swirl. I had left the house in utter disarray. And for a type A chica like me, a mess makes me nuts. The counters were covered with "stuff" and piles of dirty breakfast plates sat in the sink.



Dinosaurs and Lego's were scattered about on the coffee table, and a combination of kid projects and a world map for my oldest who is drawing a flag for each country. Yes, he's the kind of boy who does those things in his free time just for fun. Gotta love a kiddo like that.

So I walked in, still feeling the adrenalin from speaking in front of the MOPS group, looked around my house, and felt panic. It didn't help that I tried to avoid the mess by heading upstairs to only find a pile of dirty sheets in our laundry area and piles of clean clothes layered on our unmade bed.

I really needed to take a deep breath, think straight, and make a decision to tackle one thing at a time. It seemed as though it would take me all afternoon to take care of it all, but it was surprisingly simple once I shut off my mind to everything and took it in baby steps. 30 minutes later, my house looked like my home again.

I can't help but relate this to other areas in our lives. Sometimes we get so bombarded by messes in all the "rooms" in our lives. We don't know how to tackle them and they seem like they will take so much more work than they really will. In reality if we address each mess at a time, stay focused on that one mess, it will be much easier to clean than if we try to clean a bit in each "room" all at the same time.

Yes, life gets messy sometimes. Which "room" in your life can God help you clean today: marriage, parenting, friendship?

I am thankful that I don't clean the messes up by myself. I have a God who knows my messes well. He knows my needs and he has all the supplies necessary to make my "rooms" clean.

Much love,
Katie