Messy hearts & Messy homes

It is almost the middle of October and I was hoping my life would slow down a little. Remember when we started a summer project called finishing the basement? Yeah, it is still going. I guess we can start calling it our autumn project now. We just got home from Home Depot and are hoping that the carpet will be going in at the beginning of November which will be the last of it. Finally.

The last of the mess making – the saw dust, drywall dust, paint, grout, and general mess that has been trekked through my house on a daily basis. The last of our daily trips to Home Depot (I hope) even though we created a pretty long project list for after the basement is finished (home improvement is addictive!) The last of “sorry we can’t do that we need to work on the basement” and the last of “I’m not ready to go back to work I feel like we worked all weekend.”

I’m looking forward to a finished basement and although we are so close, I feel like the light at the end of the tunnel is still so far away. I laugh because we had no idea what we got ourselves into and while I know we will be proud when it is all over, I don’t know if I would have encouraged it so much if I knew what we would have to sacrifice to finish it.

My house has been a mess for the last 5 months. I’ve had toilets on my couch, sinks, in my living room, speakers and spare furniture in my bedroom, a stack of all our lighting fixtures in my kitchen, drywall dust on EVERYTHING, and a kitchen table that looks more like a workbench than an eating area. We’ve eaten out far too much, moved the furniture all around to watch a movie, created pathways to get around, and consumed a fair amount of beer 😉 It’s been pretty messy.

I feel much more at home in an orderly place. I love a tidy home and decluttered life. The months of having a home that almost never met those standards did a work on me. I was forced to invite people over (even though I wasn’t loving the state of my house) and continue doing life with people. I reached several breaking points when I needed to have a reality check and deal with my perfectionism. and I had to face the messy in my heart while living in the messy in my home.

I guess I am still working on all that mess – the house mess and the heart mess. Sometimes the perfection monster screams so loud & the pressure that I put on myself to do it all, be it all, have it all, share it all, and invest it all is too much. I struggle with blogging, with working, with being there for friends & family, with making meals, with keeping house, and with all those other things that life throws my way. But this summer more than ever I’ve found grace in that mess. I’ve hosted parties in the middle of the drywall dust, I’ve had friends move couches and sit with feet up on stacks of tile to watch the Broncos play, and I’ve been loved through my mini meltdowns (thanks for being so gracious friends!)

I’ve been looking at the gospel again with new eyes. Seeing that I am not enough on my own and that mess is inevitable BUT He is enough. He is the wholeness and redemption and sustainer of all the mess. While my heart longs for perfection it is not something that working harder or stressing more will ever solve. I will always fall short. I can never work my way out of my need for the Lord. The thought of this has been somewhere between a hard pill to swallow and the best gift ever.

So currently things are messy. The basement mess will end one day (soon I hope) but more messes will come. My heart mess is all over the place and will continue ebbing and flowing as outer circumstances change. But the Lord is constant and the Lord is faithful and the Lord is always MORE.

xoxo, elizabeth