I am a Mess

: Created on Friday, 19 October 2012 04:53; Written by Nathalie

She scrunches her nose and the corners of her mouth turn upward toward the sunlight that halos her blonde locks. She is literally beaming.

His feet grip the green earth and his arms propel him, feeling the wind crash against his skin. He lives for motion.

They are works of art. There is no one else in the world that replicates them. No one. Their very existence reveals His glory.

The curves of their little faces when they smile and when they cry. The way her arms wrap my neck when I hold her. The way his voice sounds when he says I love you. The busting of laughter when fingers tickle their toes. The sparkle in his eyes when we tell him we're proud. The way she sticks out her tongue when she's concentrating. How he nuzzles up close on the couch. The way she strokes my face when I'm praying at bedtime. The way they pretend when they think no one's watching.

His Glory revealed in the moments.

But sometimes I am so blinded by the stuff of the day...especially the messy parts.

When tempers flare at words repeated like a broken record. When my clothes are stained with the remains of sticky hands. When I stumble in the night feeling my way toward the "mommy" cries. When tears stream down weary cheeks. When I'm climbing over laundry piles and wading through dishes and wiping noses and bums and floors and walls.

These are the dangerous moments. These are the moments that tempt me to shield my eyes from the light of His Glory.

It's the messy moments that tempt me to believe that it's my job to do the cleaning.

During Jessi Connolly's session at the Influence Conference, she said something that was so poignant for me.

"When we minister out of ourselves, we bleed out. But our blood is no good."

He already shed perfect blood.

The glorious Truth: I am a MESS. And Jesus blood makes me clean.

Smack dab in the middle of the messiness of motherhood...those dangerous moments...we can receive His perfect cleansing blood.

And it's IN the mess and by His blood that I am positioned to behold the light of His Glory.