A Day of Mess

Here are my sweet girls right before school Tuesday. I get so few pictures of them together actually looking at the camera that I wanted to post this one. Aren't they cute? Yes!

This is Audrey Kate yesterday morning in a rare moment of calm and quiet.  My girls are busy, busy, busy! I've realized that it is much easier (if easier is, indeed, the right word) to care for my kids when they are sick than it is when they are well and I am feeling sick.  I wasn't feeling well yesterday, THANK YOU SEASON CHANGE, and my girls decided to be particulary,

busy. If that is, indeed, the right word.

We spent the better part of an hour looking for the partner to Abby's brand-new shoe. And as Abby and I were were searching under beds and in the backs of closets, Audrey Kate took the shoe that we had and packed it away in her lunch box. So, no wonder we have missing shoes.

Also, not pictured is the spillage of an entire box of Lucky Charms (or if you are two years old you call it Wucky Chawms) and the entire 96-count box of crayons dumped on top of that.

I did not want to forget how it felt to enter my bedroom with 15 minutes to go before needing to leave for AK's gym class to find green fingerprints on the back of our door. In an unidentified substance. An unidentified substance which was also covering my two year old's hands and mouth.

Later, upon cleaning up the spilled Wucky Chawms (also, crushed) and the 96 crayons, I came across a green stamp pad. Mystery solved.

Also of note: A certain Picasso in my home made a canvas of one of my favorite lamps.

What you might call art, I just call

a ruined lamp shade.

I never got to make my bed, which just added to my feeling of over-all unorganized chaos-ishness.

And for the love of Pete (hey, Pete!)

every single time I open this cabinet something falls on top of me!

Please, somebody tell me you have a cabinet like this in your house! Please??

It was just a day of mess.

Though the highlight of my day was when Abby took a giant leap off our leather couch onto the (glass) coffee table and managed to crush my favorite potpourri bowl filled with decorative rocks and such.

To say I was upset would be an understatement. I didn't get angry or anything, much to my own surprise, but I did send both my girls straight to nap time.  They both napped very well, at the same time, for the first time in oh, say, about 2 years! It was actually great, quiet, reflective time for me. Which I mostly spent cleaning up various messes from the day.

I totally was not upset about the actual bowl---which I did adore---but more so at the actions its shattered remains represented.

First of all my child could have been hurt, but thankfully wasn't. It was also an act of disobedience since she has been warned in the past not to use the couch as a trampoline. Why? Because things break and people could get hurt. (Also know, I am of the opinion that, while we should train our children in obedience, I try not to put things expensive or precious out that might potentially get broken. Children have a knack for accidental breakings!)

It reminded me, though, of one of the most valuable lessons I have been pondering lately. 

My sinful heart, if I let it lead me, will only lead me in the ways of foolishness and destruction. 

 A child's heart and actions are generally foolish just by their very nature. My girls, loved and loving and wonderful as they are, did not spring forth from the womb as obedient and wise. Anything they know of goodness and obedience and wisdom has to be taught to them. That is just the very nature of who we all were born to be.

But, how many times have I leapt heedlessly before I thought and smashed something precious into a thousand unrepairable pieces?

Too many times to count.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer. 17:9)

I want my children to understand their heart's motivations, and that until they are leaning not on their own understandings, but acknowledging God in all their ways,*

their hearts will lead them wildly astray.

A child's foolishness leads to a broken potpourri bowl.

An adult's foolishness leads to broken hearts and relationships and dreams.

As we live life, in the midst of it all, there will always be messes. Big ones and small ones and none of it out of the hands of an all-knowing God.

And of course, when we do jump without thinking and create the chaos of destruction upon our landing,

we have an ever-present Help, a friend who is closer than a brother, to pick us up and dust us off--even though the consequences of our actions may remain-- and who reminds us, much as we remind our own children, that we are forgiven and loved and,

because of Christ's great sacrifice on our behalf,

we are accepted.

Despite our mess.

And now, would you be so kind as to let me know if you come across a pink sparkly shoe that has no mate?

I would appreciate it!

*Prov.3:5-6