All Things Messy

I am an organized person. I was a mothers dream teenager because there was never the battle of having me clean my room. I did it naturally and still do.  I live by a planner. Not because I want to have every second of every day planned, but I like the comfort of knowing that my day will be a little less chaotic because I took an extra step to plan it out, and to remind myself what I have going on. This semester my organized and tidy self was turned upside down.

My planner would explode if I tried to write everything down. Juggling school, work, and coaching has been one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. I spend so much time in my car just going from point A to point B and then eventually to point C: home to school, school to work, work to volleyball. A couple days ago I was driving from one point to another and looked in my rearview mirror into my backseat, and (total girl moment) just started crying. It looked like my car was my second bedroom. I keep all my books for school in my car because I know I will forget one trying to get out the door in the morning. I have my book bag, my gym bag, my volleyball bag, and who knows what all else is back there. To say the least it was the farthest thing from clean. I remember just saying, “Jesus, my life is such a mess right now.”

           

Days before I had been reading/studying the story of Martha and Mary in Luke 10.

“Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from her.” Luke 10:42

Another version says, “Only one thing is essential, and Mary has chosen it.” Everything in this world opposes the idea of loving Jesus, but we have to choose it anyway. Mary got it right, she chose the one thing that was needed, and nobody could take that from her. But Mary’s choice was driven by her desire to respond. Mary sat at his feet, inhaling every word Jesus had to say, and His worlds fueled her to respond, and her response was her choosing Him. I was so reminded in that moment when I thought my life was such a mess that I had a choice. I could be Martha and be “pulled away by all she had to do” (Luke 10:40) or I could be Mary and I could just choose Jesus. Isn’t it that simple most of the times? We can choose to be pulled away and to see everything in our lives or we can choose Jesus.

Jesus set the most beautiful example for us to follow. When He could have chosen the heavens and all their glory, He chose a crown of thorns and a spear in His side. When He could have chosen beauty, he chose the mess. He chose the mess because He saw us in the mess; He saw beauty in the mess.  

As cliché as it is, it is all about perspective. I learned that day that sometimes the mess just says you are living. You are giving life all you got and not slowing down to tidy up. If that’s the case maybe what we sometimes think is mess is really just life. Maybe sometimes Jesus takes us to those places of breakdowns in the driver seat of our cars to remind us that our choice to continuously choose him is the very thing that will always see us through, and that how your life appears to look really doesn’t matter. All that matters is that when people see your life they see Jesus. 

Maybe the backseat of you car is a mess. Maybe your kitchen is overflowing with dishes. Maybe your hair hasn’t been fixed in weeks. All of that doesn’t discredit your ability to be the hands and feet of Jesus. I think that is what I was missing. I thought that I had to have it “all together” to be able to be used. But in the end it’s not our ability to have it all together, it’s our ability to just say yes.  

I am not discrediting the tidiness. I am not speaking against being organized. I still live in a way where I try to do those things. I am saying that when we get to the point that we can’t adjust to anything other than our perfectly organized life and checking off our to do lists then we are becoming a Martha. If we are living in the way where we get uncomfortable when our days don’t go as how our agenda planned than we have our hand squeezed a little too tightly around control, and we have to release that. Control is saying “my way.” Flexibility is saying “whatever you want Jesus.”

I had to let go of my control that day in my car. I had to let Jesus shatter my agenda. I had to live a messy life to see that a messy life is no less satisfying than a “tidy life.” I had to go back to the beginning. I had to sit down at His feet, listen to what He was trying to say, and then respond. I had to do as Mary did. I had see that my eyes can't be fixated on the things of this world. I had to see that I just needed to choose Jesus. It was that simple. 

Here is to realizing that messy lives are beautiful.

Today, just choose Jesus. Nothing else matters.