Beauty in the Mess

Often in my youth work in Youth Initiatives we speak about getting into the messes of life with young people.  It's often challenging, tricky, and painful and most of the time... messy.  The thing about messes though is we really much prefer to hide our messes.  People don't want others to see the mess of their lives or necessarily be in the messes of others.  Thats why we are often professional "small talkers."  Take enough interest that you care, but not too much because you don't want to get into the mess of other people's lives.  We would hate to intrude or anything.

And whenever anybody is coming over for a dinner or a cup of tea, we are quick to tidy up our house and throw things into our "junk drawer" or that "spare bedroom" in which no one should ever dare to enter unless they are wiling to risk bodily harm from a possible avalanche of random stuff.

Growing up, my dad would always tell me a story about whenever my Uncle David and him were kids no matter what the activity was- my Uncle David would always get dirtier than him.  Even if they were doing the exact same thing. He would of course be telling me this when I was trying to bake cookies and the kitchen was covered with egg, flour, sugar, butter etc...

I'm a bit of a messy person.  I like the sprawl out wherever I am.  I was at a friends house for dinner last night for no more than 2 hours and when it came time to leave, I had to find my coat in one room and a scarf in the other.  Often, my shoes are also in another location of the house.  Being tidy and orderly is not my natural talents.  I love the order of chaos.  I think in some ways thats why I don't mind being in the messes of young people.

My first year of living in Belfast, God taught me the importance of seeing beauty in the midst of chaos/ messes.  I was being prayed with and there was a tornado of "stuff" in my minds eyes distracting me from the prayer time.  I took a deep breath and asked God what it meant.  While all these things were spinning around me, we walked together and in the middle of a pile of stuff there was a little flower- just for me! I realised that don't have to have everything in my life figured out or organised but that God could help me find beauty and order in the middle of the mess if only I remain close to Him.

This has been a great practice in my life that I have tried to strive for- to find beauty in the messes.  Whether this be my life, my desk at work, the city i live in, or the people I share life with, I try to see the beauty (particularly what God sees as beautiful) in the midst of the mess and chaos.  I'm by no means perfect at it, but I am striving for it.  Sometimes when life feels a bit overwhelming and I don't know what to do, I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and God shows me the flowers in the midst of it.  May I never forget to look for the beauty in the messes.

In the midst of a busy week of school retreats, my desk became a "catch all" and bit of a mess.
Yet I smiled each time I worked at it because of the flowers a friend brought me. :)