Month: May 2021

Beautiful Messes

| Karen

One day as I was walking in our backyard, my eye caught something bright blue at eye level. If I give you ten guesses, I doubt you’d guess correctly.

What was it? A small porcelain bowl. Complete with a fork and a cheap gray plastic bowl.

Apparently, my youngest son had eaten from these bowls and saw the tree as a convenient way to technically not leave the bowls in the yard but get them out of the way so he could swing (same tree) or play longer.

After two or three rounds of this, when I started to get tired of finding my dishes up in trees, I stopped one day and thought, what a beautiful mess.

See, for a few years we were unable to have children. But that day, again reaching to bring the dishes down from the branch, I thought- this is really a picture of a blessing. I have children. Children who can play outside and eat a snack and reach to that height in the tree. And my sons won’t always do this… they are quickly on a fast track toward growing up.

And so, I took a picture and started an album in my phone called “Beautiful Messes.”

A few times over the past year, I find myself browsing through this album now on my phone, and it gives me such joy. There’s so much evidence of life behind the messy moments. We think somehow we are supposed to have our homes and families all together looking just so, that I am afraid sometimes we wipe away the messes or get frustrated about them before taking a moment to be thankful for what each mess means. I’ll share a few more…

When we just moved in to a new house, surrounded by boxes, but I just wanted to sit in the “sunroom” and look out the window with a cup of coffee… overwhelmed with all the “To Do” but realizing the boxes mean we have more than we need, and a new home is a fresh start to meet new friends.
Muddy shoes by the front door- a daily occurrence at the time. Thankful for growing boys who play hard and don’t let a little mud stop them.
What we came home to one Sunday after getting two new puppies. Took me a little longer to see this one with thankful eyes, but my sons had wanted dogs for years and we were finally able to get some. They have been such great companions for the boys and no longer take the stuffing out of pillows, though they still chew an occasional shoe that’s left on the floor.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭3:11‬