It's Messy

Oh this phrase describes so many things in my life right now; my house, my laundry, my emotions, my desk, my car...even my hair!  But this week I am struck by how it so accurately describes our lives as believers.  If we choose to believe and follow Jesus Christ we will strive to pattern our lives after Him.  In that pursuit we discover that the concept is simple, straightforward and clear but the process of walking it out can be altogether MESSY.

It seems I hit this wall a couple times a year where emotionally I just can't take it anymore.  Where the call to pour myself out, to love sacrificially, to divide myself 10 ways just gets too much for me.  Loving my foster sons is messy.  I am called to do my best for them, to love them as unconditionally as I can and to expect little in return.  And sometimes it is so hard.  Sometimes they hurt me.  With their indifference, with their words, when they pull back as I try to press in.  It's normal but it's hard.  They are teenage boys most of whom have never been loved well.  Often they don't know how to respond, what to do with it.  Most of the time I get it, I can handle it.  But every so often I crumble under the emptiness of it all.  Of all the giving and little receiving.

I get hurt.  Then I cry.  Then I plead and bargain with God. Then I question the manner in which I have loved them all along.  Maybe I've been wrong, maybe I need to do it differently.  Then I plead and bargain with God again...this is the way He made me.  I don't know how to love them less, differently. To hold back my heart from them.  Then I plot and plan how to do it.  How to hold back, how to "guard my heart" from them.  How to survive with out getting hurt.  Then I plead and bargain again.  I know I can't do it that way.  I can't hold back from them.  It's not who I am and frankly it's not how He loves us.  So I just grieve it for a couple days.  I give myself a little space from the boys and drag my grieving heart back to the Lord for yet another repair job.  And then I go back.  Back to messy, back to vulnerable to pain, back to giving my heart to them again. It's messy.

A sweet friend and I were talking about the messiness just this week.  We talked about how really, we aren't called to "guard our hearts" from others.  Proverbs 4:23 says "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life".  We are called to guard what we allow into our hearts; things of the world, things of the enemy, our thought lives etc.  But we aren't called to guard our hearts by holding back from others.  Instead He calls us to pour ourselves out, like drink offerings.  John 15:12-13 "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." After all that is what He has done for us. It's hard, it's sacrificial and frankly it's messy.  We get hurt.

So here I sit, thinking of my messy life.  I grieve the heartache of loving and not always being loved back.  I throw myself at the feet of my God & King in desperation as I wait on Him to fill me back up.  And then I go back...to the messiness.  Is there any other way, really?  Yes, there is.  I have lived a non sacrificial life.  One where although I loved and followed God, I rarely gave of myself until it hurt.  I would give time, money etc where there was excess to give.  But I held back.  Protected myself and my stuff. It was neat, tidy, not all that messy but really not all that meaningful.  And in the messy life I find God in a way I never experienced in my tidy life.  In the mess, I am so aware of my weakness, my sin, my need and so overwhelmed by His power, His mercy, His love.

Loving and caring for others is messy, but it's what He has called us to.  Won't you consider how you join the mess?  This week I am thinking of all the orphans.  Other kids outside my house who don't have someone willing to enter the mess with them. This Sunday, November 7th, is Orphan Sunday, a day created by the Christian Alliance for Orphans to honor the 148 million orphans in the world.  It's a time to spotlight ministry to orphans and a doorway to enter into the mess.  Consider it, friends, and join me.
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