October 4, 2008

Crazy times

I'm not sure what we expect life to be like. Jason made the comment about a month ago that he thought we'd been, "sinfully busy." I agree with him. I don't want to be one of those soccer moms who frantically runs from one sports game to the next, frantically rushing kids to piano lessons, play dates, etc., while trying to fit in grocery shopping, and one-on-one time with everyone in the family.

I would love to pack up my family, live half an hour out of town, and peek my head in to friends and family once a week.

However, life is messy. I keep waiting for that "magic" time when life steps into a routine, a step, or a rhythm that is comfortable for me. I'm realizing that: fighting, trying, changing, resisting, controlling, pushing, stopping, going-- they are all things that I've had to do to experience something GREAT. The biggest pains bring the sweetest joys. The plans I've had have been train wrecks...but somehow, slowly, painfully, sweetly, things change. God peels back the old 70's wallpaper from the interior of my life. I start to see something bigger. I start to see gargantuan craters as potholes. He pulls back my crappy covering, and reveals something so intricate, so beautiful, so perfectly divine that I'd be a fool to walk away, or try and take credit for myself. Unfortunately, too often that's exactly what I do.

I walk away in fear, or take over in grandiose self-importance in the realization that He chose me. Instead of realizing that we are ALL chosen, and I am but the shovel, the pick, the nothing...turned to something in my Creator's hands.

Two people came over today. Our house looked something like this: 2 loads of laundry on the front living room couch, a sink-full of dirty dishes from making cookies, tools piled up high around the fireplace, 4 interior doors stacked in the family room, sewing projects on the kitchen table. I smiled. I'm just so done with being embarrassed about my constant state of existence! This is who I am...and life is messy ;-)