messy

What denotes the end of the summer and the beginning of autumn my favorite season is not students being back on campus or even the pool club closing.  It most definitely is marked by the first sip of that pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks.

Tomorrow I have plans to get some work done over this seasonal drink to allow my mind to shift from summer to fall mode.  But I realized that my room was in desperate need of a quick clean sweep before I could fully retire my summer self.  The backpack needed to be emptied of beach sand and a lifeguard whistle and the blankets and pillows from numerous sleepovers needed to be folded and put away.  There were some clothes that I never got around to hanging up, and I figured that I'd listen to some 90s hits on Pandora as I made my room sparkle for an hour.

My life was busy this summer, to say the least.  Working a minimum of 6 days a week meant that on the seldom times I had off, I crammed it with a social life and made certain that friends slept over or that I went on short trips.  But when the fleeting friend-filled weekends ended, it was always right back to work--leaving little to no time for unpacking suitcases or putting away the makeshift "beds."  If I was lucky enough to find time to do laundry I usually didn't have time to put away the clothes properly and I dumped them into a pile on the floor to allow my laundry basket to fill up with the dirties again.

So I took an hour tonight and put away the clothes, blankets, and pillows.  And when I looked up with expectation of seeing a new and improved room, it still looked equally as messy.  Somehow mail and papers and bible study notes and cotton balls and loose change and post-it notes covered not only my floor, but also every dresser in my room.  I now have to find time to sort through piles and piles of paper and vacuum the carpet.

Without me knowing it, the messy fell over the messy, which fell over the messy.

My bulky sweatshirts and blankets covered the clutter that will be even more time-consuming to pick up.

I was living in ignorance, not realizing that each toss of a piece of mail or unwanted article of clothing was creating a hazardous environment.  Creating a culture of messy in my room.

Being messy leads to messy.
Being messy without much regard for it, leads to a day when I question "how did it even get to this point?"

And so I find my heart some of the time.

When I'm not being conscious or keeping myself in check or remaining in my disciplines for a season, Jesus peels back a layer and shows me how deep the messy goes.  All it takes are a few lazy days and I find myself caught in a spider web of complications.  I'm nervous to embark on this cleaning spree because I know how time consuming the clutter will take.  I know the effort that I must give to Jesus in this process.

So I guess this housekeeper will be working on her room this week.
As her Housekeeper works on her heart.