A Beautiful Mess

Being a mom has deconstructed and re-made me in so many ways.
This morning Cameron was busy coloring while I finished up the usual morning chores. ("Coloring"here mostly involves dumping the crayons out and then using scissors to chop any available paper into tiny bits. But I digress.) She ran in beaming and said "mommy I made somefing for you!" Then she handed me a scribbled and mutilated piece of paper.

That piece of paper is a treasure. It is a beautiful mess. Not because of what it is inherently, but because of all it represents and suggests and implies. My spunky, sparkling, spirited pixie daughter, delighted merely to be, and to share something with me.

And here I go in the God-ward direction, because this is where I always go now: God is my Father who loves me, who sees my mess and transforms it by His grace into beauty. Even my best efforts produce only ruin but for His work. I want to do better, and be better, because I want to please my Father. This is not to say I am free from all my old bad habits: performing to earn His love, despairing over my failures, congratulating myself over my achievements, quietly sneering at others who are more frequently or openly sinful than I.

But what a mercy that I can even understand the difference now, between wanting to be good for my own sake, and just wanting His Goodness to take hold of me.

 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Colossians 3:12-14 ESV