Oh, how I would love to open my kitchen cabinet doors to discover a gleaming oasis of organization. Instead of moving mixing bowls to get to a serving bowl, all bowls would be equally accessible. Some people’s dreams are inspired by dramatic home renovations on HGTV. I simply long for less crashing when I reach for a bowl.
Until the day arrives when only my husband and I open the kitchen cabinets, the crashing will persist. There is no possibility of an oasis for now. Like the lives we live, the cabinets will be messy, imperfect, oasis-less.
I have rounded the corner to the last third of my congregation’s gift of a sabbatical. The abundance of time I have to hang out with Jesus in prayer, to say yes to late night conversations with kiddos and my husband, and to Uber my kids here there and everywhere will shift in a month.
In my morning devotions, a question posed was whether I carry around heavy burdens from my past. Whether old sins linger and weigh on my shoulders. For me, it is the little things that snowball into a heavy burden. It is the everyday obnoxious, pestering questions:
Did I do enough for my family? For the church?
Whom did I disappoint?
Why did I say that?
Why didn’t I say that?
Could I have done that better?
Those are the pesky questions that keep me up at night and scratch at my soul, more than heavy burdens from my past.
And so, when I opened the kitchen cabinet and moved three things to get to a bowl this morning, I wondered if God was reminding me there is no oasis here. No organization or perfection to simplify life. As long as your heart is involved and your daily work (at home or anywhere) involves leading with your heart, you are in for messy cabinets, messy calendars, messy moments, messy sleep schedules. As long as you deeply care for people, do not expect perfection in your pantry.
This is why I wrote myself a note today. While the previous paragraph makes complete sense to me right now, in a couple of months when the messy cabinets are messier and I long for more time just to sit with Jesus, I will need a reminder. I will need a reminder that life with people involved is like needing the bowl that happens to be tucked into the corner, behind three other things. Always there is reaching and crashing. Remember, the note will nudge me, messy cabinets accompany life. The reaching, perhaps, could sound like Jesus’ reaching for me when I get stuck in the pestering questions. The crashing, perhaps, could sound like the slippery waters of baptism protecting me from the sticky burden of worrying whether I have done enough, or whether I am enough.
The moral of the story: If your cabinets are messy, you are awesome. Or more importantly, you are enough. And that is awesome.
Lisa Lewton 