What Every Messy Mom Should Know

I am currently buried under weeks of mess.

My kids were out of school for FOUR HUNDERED AND THIRTY YEARS thanks to the recent snow... plus ice plus snow plus ice... that we Southerners CANNOT DEAL WITH, bless our hearts - and the wreckage left behind in my house could rival New York City after Ryan Seacrest and his hair rock in the New Year.

My house is a mess. I am behind on every. single. thing and I'm waiting for some magical kind of "feeling" to bolster me out of the squalor and snap away the mess in a Mary Poppins-esque sing-a-long jubilee.

I am, however, trying to stay on top of the papers. Because the papers show no mercy if you let them go and the process of digging out from underneath them is more than even I, Procrastinator Extraordinaire, can handle.

Several years ago, I was sorting and stacking and filing and lamenting the fact that no matter how fast and furiously I pedal on this bicycle of motherhood, I will never escape all of my messes around here. The laundry will never be done. The dishes will always pile up and even if I do actually pull out the vacuum at a time OTHER than when company is coming, I'll still find cobwebs up high where the walls meet.

Shaking my head, I looked down at this. A paper that Jack brought home from school. Very simply and appropriately titled, "Daddy".

I saved it.

There are a million things I love about it. Not the least of which is that my boy loves his Dad.

As I smiled and read through all that was written on it - the misspelled words, the eraser marks, the "mistakes" in capitalization and punctuation - it was the last line that caused me to pause. It pierced right through me.

"What I love most about my Daddy is that he loves me."

It echoed - over and over.

What I love most about my Daddy ...

...is that He loves me.

I sat there - staring at that paper. Amidst my messes. Looking around at all that I'm not. Staring at my failures and shortcomings as evidenced by my messy house and messy life and messy everything else and in those words - I felt God's love jump right off the page at me.

What I love most about my Daddy is that he's proud of me when I do a really good job.

Yes? NOPE. Never.

What I love most about my Daddy is that he loves me.

Is that He loves me.

Here's what I saw on that paper that day: God loves me. Simply because I am His.

He accepts me. He cherishes me. He has a heart to see me grow, but He is infinitely patient with my struggles because I am His child and I need never doubt, never wonder, never DO anything to earn His favor or grace, but just accept the love that He has for me.

May knowing of God's steadfast love for me be enough for this messy girl today.

May it be enough for you, too.