24th June 2012

Sometimes life gets messy. And despite the best of intentions we just have to live with it. For a time anyway. Am I the only one to shortcut much needed cleaning when feeling tired? For the whole of my life I gave very little thought to the problem of spider’s webs. Very, very rarely I might have found one that needed dealing with. Usually around the back of a heavy piece of furniture that only I would move out of it’s place. Basically though, they just didn’t exist in my house. Until a few months ago, when I suddenly realised they were quite plainly visible in almost every corner of every room. Then I remembered Jane quite proudly showing off some sort of duster on a long stick which she used at every opportunity to clean our ceilings. She always knew how to deal with mess. I feel like a complete amateur.

A year or two ago, in my TV watching days, I remember a contestant in Masterchef being gently ribbed about his somewhat messy approach to cooking. Yet he produced amazing food, every time. My son’s just like that, indeed there ought to be some sort of warning sign in our kitchen when he’s at work! It may take a couple of days to clean up but the results are absolutely wonderful. Yes, he sure knows how to produce something good from the biggest mess. And my pic today is of my granddaughter hard at work in every child’s favourite activity… hand painting. I reckon just about every good artist has something of the child at work within them. They love to create work from the messiest of materials, often with the messiest methodology. At times Jane’s hands were totally wrecked as she often discarded brushes and palette knives and simply used her fingers. To great effect. This week I even donned rubber gloves when using a paintbrush to decorate. And my excuse is that I need to protect my musician’s hands…

My life feels rather messy at the moment. Nothing really organised due to out of control emotions and poor health. And of course as I gaze around I can see my vacuum really will have to have an outing tomorrow morning. Not this evening though. I need to prioritise listening to the Lord. So now I’m believing that my messy life will be transformed into a thing of beauty by the God of heaven.

Isaiah 61:3 ^‘To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.’ (NLT)