Finding treats amidst the mess...

I am what some might say a neat freak. That does not mean that I am especially clean, rather I am tidy. Everything has a place and most times, everything is in that place. I cannot rest in the evening until all is tidied. I simply can't relax. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, there are many times I wish I was not so affected by my surroundings. It takes a lot-and I mean a lot-of self-talk for me to leave something undone and go out and play with the children. It takes a lot to leave the pile of blocks to sit and read a book, to put together a puzzle, to color a picture. I have this "just one more thing" mentality and to be honest, I will enjoy those activities more with the kids if everything else is picked up before we start. The problem is of course, the children really don't care. I mean-they just want my attention. They want my focus on them-not on them AND the cushions on the sofa that just aren't right....

This is a hard time for me-Spring. After all, it is Spring Cleaning time!! The commercials show me, the magazines tell me-now is the time to organize, purge, scrub every surface-and given my "all or nothing" mentality, this is pure torture for me. I go room to room , under every bed, open every drawer, every crevice must be cleaned-because isn't that what a good wife and mother does.... Of course, in the middle of all this, I am yelling at my husband, speaking crossly to the kids-shooing everyone out of the room I am in-all in the name of being what I think I should be....I think I am missing something...

The Martha Principle-and no, I am not referring to Martha Stewart. I am referring to a story in the Bible in which Jesus visited two sisters and Martha was busy doing what a good hostess does-she was in the kitchen preparing the best feast, spreading the best tablecloth, tidying up. Mary, her sister, is simply sitting at Jesus' feet listening to him, enjoying his company, learning about true goodness. Martha of course is flustered (nope, can't say I ever felt that!! Whatever-only a million times a day...) and she expresses her upset at Jesus, telling him to inform her sister that she should be helping her. Jesus reply, perhaps for me, the most convicting words of scripture "My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details. There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it" Luke 11:42. I love, love the tenderness of Jesus towards Martha-perhaps that affects me because I am Martha and oh, I cling to his tenderness amidst the ugliness of me "doing what a good homemaker does".....

So I was thinking to this when I awoke this morning to toys everywhere, a pile of laundry, gardens not yet weeded.... when Mahone, being used by Jesus for certain, provided my object lesson of the day...You see, he was playing kitchen, making me pears (not sure how you MAKE pears, but whatever..) He was throwing around the play food, the plates, the pots and pans and there was MESS.... when all of a sudden, such happiness, such excitement bellowed from him-because you see amidst the mess of his kitchen, he found a treat, a surprise, a little miracle for 8:00am-a chocolate Easter egg that had not yet been found. Amidst the mess, he found pure joy, pure happiness.... he found the better thing....

 

So I'm off to try and discover this better thing.... I am going to spend the day shifting my eyes off the clutter, the toys, the dust and focusing on the treats I will find in the mess..

Me