This Beautiful Mess

My house is full of art today.

Not the kind you buy in a store, but more beautiful still.

Five little sets of hands creating, scraps of paper, backyard leaves, acorns stuck to paper.

And each time I walk by these works of art, I am amazed.

It almost takes my breath away.

I am amazed at this small wonder, this art that fills my home, because for so many years this house was empty of art.

And I liked it that way.

Empty of Life.  I wanted it tidy.

And Art, well, it makes a big mess.

So there was no painting, no markers, no cutting scraps of paper into shapes, all this caused messes that I had to clean up.

Me, always sweeping all this mess under the rug.

But these kind of messes never really go away.

Me, I wanted it neat, and clean and easy. 

But neat, and clean and easy are also very, very Empty.

And so this new Art, it is unbelievable.  It is unfathomable, because I love it.

How can this be?

This Grace is changing me.

It is changing me when I least expect it.  When I wasn't looking and not even trying, suddenly, there it is, Grace, blooming.

And I see this perfectionism withering on this vine.

And Love and Joy, they're in blossom.

And peace and patience are budding.

And how can this be when I've tried and tried so very hard for so long to create this fruit out of nothing but me.

And He let me try.  Over and over again I tried. 

But there is only One person who can create something out of nothing.

This Creative God who spoke and made everything.

This Grand Artist who calls Himself the Potter and me the clay.

Me with all of my mess, my trying and failing, my falling and scraped knees, my struggling to sweep all this dirty of a life that never comes clean.

This Creative One, He calls.

And He says, "Hand over your mess and I'll make it mine.  And see what I will do.  I make all messes, meaningful.  I make all this broken, beautiful.  Place it in my hands, your mess of a life, and see what I will do."

And He does.

And this mess becomes His.  For He bought it with His blood on a cross.

And this Grace, it makes everything new.

And I see it here in my house, these signs of Life, growing.

I see all this beauty that I didn't make. Because I only make messes.

And I see how He takes it all, and makes it Grace.

All this time I thought, these messes were inconvenient, were trouble, were keeping me from this fullest Life.

But all the time they were this fullest Life, leading me deeper into Grace.

And all this time, I thought I had to make myself into something beautiful and good.

But all this trying only lead to greater failing, and He is the one who makes beauty and there is only One who is good.

But when this life of mine sucks sap from this Vine of Grace, this Vine of this Holy Life of Christ, then Life blooms.

And all this fruit that I couldn't produce, it pops, fresh.

And this New Life, it is beautiful. 

A work of Art from the hands of the only Creator.

All this mess becoming beauty.