What A Mess

This weeks definition of futility was my attempt to clean our glass front door. The ever-present fingerprints had become three dimensional after Liam’s last meal. Though my tolerance for mess is high, even I can’t stand yogurt on a window, no matter how much fun he had smearing it there. But before I had even finished wiping it up, Liam had been summoned (somehow) from where he was quietly playing to come and “help” me. He ran his fingers joyfully through the wet surface on the glass that my cloth had left. Just another mess in a morning of spilled coffee and upturned peanut butter on toast. These days, I sigh from the soles of my feet. Patience, Simone, patience.

But here’s my cleaning confession: Sometimes I don’t clean the mess. Sometimes, I LIKE the mess.

Every evening, we do a pick-up of the downstairs, throwing toys back in the toy box, wiping surfaces, doing dishes, and rearranging pillows. It is a sweet thing to finally relax in a clean space after Liam’s bedtime. But sometimes, a lone shoe pops up, hidden under a chair or a truck is missed, parked innocently in a corner. And I leave it there. It makes me smile. It feels deliberate, like Liam is trying to stay with us, even as he sleeps. I love it.

So, sometimes, I leave the fingerprints on the door. I leave the “picture” he drew on my leg. I even leave the splash of mud on my shirt. After all, stains on my clothes are evidence of a messy boy who loves to cuddle his Mama. I am not ignorant to the gift I have.

Perhaps the most precious stains on my clothes are the marks left from his tear-stained face. A fall, a fright, a frustration can happen at any moment, and when he crawls into my arms and pushes his face against my chest … well, his face can be covered in just about anything. But after a few minutes, the tears subside, and his face is clean. The hurt, the mess, and the fear has been absorbed by me - often literally into the fabric of my clothes. What an honor.

As a mother - and as a friend - those are the marks that I cherish the most. The most intimate moments of friendship and motherhood are captured by the mascara stains on a shoulder or the wet patch left by tears and snot. It’s messy. But I love it.

And here’s the precious truth: Our Heavenly Father loves it, too.

The more I discover about love as a mother, the more that is revealed to me about our Father’s love.

When the Psalmist wrote “You have counted every sorrow, you have collected every tear in a bottle, you have written every one in Your book,” I begin to grasp what I haven’t seen before.

The imperfect, impatient way I love my son is a glimpse - just a glimpse - of the perfect, eternally-patient way our Father loves His children. Our tears aren’t simply erased by the next load of laundry, they are lovingly stored in wineskins and jars. Our hurts aren’t overlooked or belittled, but painstakingly recorded. He counts them, He stores them, and He records them.

What Liam knows instinctively, is that when he comes to me, all his pain and mess and fear is left with me. He doesn’t leave my arms until his eyes are dry, his wound is kissed, and his face is clean.

And what of our Heavenly Father? With His arm strong enough to save us, with His embrace big enough for all of us, with His knee available for us to rest upon - and most of all, with His Son going to the grave for us … I can hear His plea: Oh, that we would learn to do the same.