I spend my day cleaning up messes. Wiping off meat sauce lasagna from chubby cheeks. Sweeping up graham crackers. Picking up blocks, stuffed animals and whatever else tickled my little guy’s fancy today. Vacuuming an unseemly amount of food out of the recesses of the high chair. Scrubbing the day’s dirt out of his hair, from behind his ears, off grubby fingers and toes.
I welcome the mess. Lonely in my too perfect and too clean house, I wished for a household of noise and chaos. I prayed for a child to follow me around, to make messes, to tug at my skirts. And my loving Father heard my prayer, and answered it.
On my good days, I don’t see the mess. I see beauty. I see my son’s insatiable appetite for learning, discovering, growing. I see the joy on his face as he grinds applesauce into his hair. The wonder as he opens a shoe box and pulls out the treasures I’ve hidden inside for him. I see a house that is lived in, used and enjoyed.
These are the things that matter. The cobwebs under my furniture don’t matter. The unpainted walls don’t matter. What matters is the fact that I am blessed beyond all that I could wildly imagine. Blessed with a little boy who is teaching me so much, without uttering a single word.
I 'm learning that this is how God sees us. Where we see imperfections, failures and disappointments, He sees beauty. He sees His child who He loves, who in His eyes is perfect. Yes, he still has to pick up our messes, but he doesn’t mind them. Because they are the evidence of the fact that we are learning and growing, and reaching out to be closer to Him.
Those messes don’t define us, we are defined by His love for us and His delight in the people we are growing up to be.
