Playing in the mud

Life is messy.

It is not a neat organized, well planned event.

No matter how well we fake it, present it, package it- it’s a mess.

It is messy in our childhoods, messy in our love lives, messy in marriage, messy in parenthood, messy in friendships, messy in extended family, messy at school, messy at work.

It is the way the world works. Broken, falling apart, always dying. There is no hope in this world that can fix the messes. No joy in cleaning up the messes.

My life is a mess. It has always been a mess. From the moment I was brought into this world. Parents, not long after marrying, barely hanging on. Yelling, screaming, fighting; my father’s unfaithful heart broke my mothers. Messy. Divorce, depression, fear; my mother’s broken heart began to break ours. Messy.

At a young age, my innocence was stolen from me. Messy. Trying to find love and acceptance. Messy Falling in love with the wrong person, at too young an age. Messy. Giving too much of myself away. Messy.

I believed that life, was a fairy tale and that my prince would swoop me up from the messes and take me away to a castle far far away and all the messes would stay far behind me. My creative imagination captivated me and allowed me to live in Wonderland. My time there lasted only a year, but I found my Prince. His name is Jesus and he rescued me for the messes of reality.

In steps the man I was to marry. I was not attracted to him, I did not love him, yet the Lord told me he was my husband. I trusted my Prince and stepped into an adventure likened to Alice in Wonderland, falling down the hole into a place I could not even imagine in my mind.

For a moment in time, I felt safe and calm, brushing all the messes of my life under the rug. And for a time, a short while, we presented a clean, well-organized front.

The messes of my life and his, began to seep out from under the rug and our life became messy. In our most noble attempts to follow the Bible, trust God and believe Jesus, the messes of our lives created havoc in our marriage. Arguments, disagreement, words that can never be taken back. Forgiveness, repentance, washing our hands in the redeeming love of Jesus. Finding a way to live in the mess.

Not long after, children adorned our life and the messes from our own childhoods began to make their ways into our family. Fighting hard to keep the messes off our children, we became more of a mess. The arguing-refrained, turned into fear; the disagreements-kept quiet, turned into depression. Still the messes grew and grew in our little family. On a physical front, emotional and spiritual.

Trying to look good for church, we brushed the mess under the rug, smiled and waved at the perfect, plastic church people who maintained a clean, tight, organized life. Inadequacy wrecked our lives. At work, at home, as parents and lovers.

Then one day, as if a messenger from heaven came to deliver the message, hope came. The day was hot and miserable. The water was rushing form the hose and the kids were staying cool. Slowly the planter box filled up with water, as they played. I sat there, watching them slip and fall in the mud, laughing with a deep contentment. Mud flying everywhere, they giggled and slipped and threw the mess everywhere. Splats of mud smashed on the outside of the house, water spraying up into the air and spotting their dirty faces with hints of clean. Mesmerized by the beauty of innocence, wallowing in the mud, transfigured my mindset. Their joy spilled over into their us, thier parents, who threw off the image of clean perfection. We indulged in the simple wonder of contentment.

That was the day I began to delight in the messes. I began to delve into the messes. My vantage point was altered and the messes became an opportunity to play, to laugh, to be content. It was a life moment that would become my life motto. It was as if God was preparing me for the next part of my life. For not long after we encountered the messiest time of our lives.

Following dreams, losing dreams. Facing reality of poverty and loss. Insecure, angry, hopeless. Fighting, not arguing, fighting and yelling and screaming. Homelessness, fear, death. Being swallowed up in the abyss of grief, sorrow overtaking me. Oppression, continued poverty, more death. Guilt, shame, regret.

In the middle of it all, were my children. The ones I wanted to spare from the messes of this life. Standing right in the middle of it, my children experienced an indescribable mess. And, as if prophetic, I watched them play in the midst of it. The mess saturated their being, but it was just mud. It was just a time. The mess is still very present in their lives. It covers them from head to toe. But they have learned to find the joy in the mess, it is not debilitating. They have learned to be content in the mess, it has not destroyed them. They have learned to make the mess fashionable, and walk around without explanation of the mess.

In my attempt to keep my kids from the messes of this life, they were immersed in it. In my passion to give them more, the Lord reached down and showed me that “Life is the messy bits!” It is the stuff that defines us, that grows us, that shapes us. It will never be clean and tidy, it will always be a mess.

And so I delight in the messy bits of life. I find ways to play in the mud. I do my best to see things from the vantage point of my little children, who took the dirt of life and made it an adventure.

Life is a mess, but Jesus cleans us up. He wipes our faces so we can see, He cleanses us from the filth.  We will get dirty again, because this journey is long. But there is a promise that in eternity, the messes will no longer exist. Everything will be neat and clean and orderly as Jesus cleanses us from the filth.

Until then, I will trudge through the mud, finding new ways to play. New ways to make mud pies and mud baths and mud castles and mud art. I will embrace the reality that life is a mess, and I, I was made to play in it.