I step on legos and little tips of crayons, milk jug rings, and a halfway hardened piece of macaroni that I thank God is just macaroni after I lift my foot behind me to grab it. I get up from the couch and find that, somehow, a used dryer sheet is stuck to my behind, and, oh, the chapstick that has been missing all week is right there on the floor... without the cap.
And while all this is going on there's this guilt...
...That my boys aren't in baseball, and how on earth will I ever afford three class rings two years apart, and college, blah, blah.... all these little worries that rob me of the joy of what Daniel is dying to tell me right in that moment, or what Brendan is itching to show me, or what Jonah is timidly trying to ask me for.
My little loves, and how can your little mama possibly be enough?
What I find, in like a mental "aha" moment, but not so dramatic, is that I don't have to keep up with the Joneses. All I have to do is ask. When two cars blew up on me, months apart, I asked for a new car in tears, and I got one. I told the boys, "Well, if you want to go to Disney World, then you'd better start praying now, because I don't see us ever affording it, baby." So they prayed, and a few months later, we went. Then I wanted a CD and BAM, thousands from Birmingham. And I wanted an electric guitar and received a facebook message from a friend out of the blue saying, "Hey, I got this guitar...." And I wanted a tablet to make my shows a little easier, and more well-rounded... I wanted an amp... I wanted a fan... I still want a house, and I have no doubt that it will all work out. Because that's what He's trying to show me through all of this. "Ask me. Just ask me. I am your Provider, and you belong to me. You are Mine. And I'm going to take care of you, and everything is going to be ok. It's going to be GREAT."
So, my question is, what is it really going to take for me to let go of this belief I have that it's my job to worry about everything I can't control?
Just like Forrest Gump says about his mama, mine "has a way of explaning things to me in ways I can understand them." My mama said, "Just take the next right step, baby. And the next one. And God will take care of the rest."
If we sit around imagining the worst we're going to find out all we worried about was just a little macaroni, but there God is, sometimes with what I think might be empty nest syndrome, just waiting on our love, waiting on us to tell Him our next request, maybe play in the same room for a while. And even though eventually our toys end up like legos and little tips of crayons on the floor of His heaven, they are symbols of our messy lives together.
True happiness is in the mess, gathered around Him, in what really isn't a mess at all.
