Messy Monday- Sometimes You're the Rolling Pin...

... Sometimes you're the dough.

It's Messy Monday here! Because being a mom is so so soooo much less glamorous than they tell you in the books, and apparently kids don't just leave the room whenever we want them to like in the sitcoms.

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him... All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned- every one- to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.- Isaiah 53:2 & 6

What exactly about my Savior made me think that a life of sacrifice would be anything remotely close to glamorous or convenient?

So here in the Jensen house we celebrate in the midst of the filth that is our life, not as a means of denial or "coping", but as a reminder of the God who did not turn away from our ugliness in sin, but confronted it and donned it in our stead. He meets us in the dust and even here we see His face.

But what to call it?

Tribute to Puke?
Eh. Sounds like one of those TMI Facebook posts.

Glamorous Mondays?
Nice sarcasm, but it doesn't have that catchy alliteration that keeps people reading.

Messy Mondays it is- God in the grossness.

 

You know, in about 20-25 years my daughters are going to think I'm a genius, instead of just a cheap mom that postpones Valentine's Day festivities a few days to get the supplies on sale at Walmart and then dresses it up as just playing "restaurant".

 

Every decent restaurant has dessert. Ours is of the boxed variety. Still, we have the perfect opportunity to use those valentines-y cookie cutters laying forlorn in the plastic shopping bag. So my sous pastry chef and I get to mixing, stirring, rolling and cutting...

She enjoys herself. I enjoy her ambition, excitement. Her little fingers.

 

After a while, frustrations begin to take shape about as frequently as cookies as her little fingers push down those cookie cutters willy-nilly, not even making the best use of space! Then she has the nerve to scrunch up the dough and start all over, rolling when there was plenty of room left for several more hearts.

 

And everyone knows that when you work too much flour into cookie dough by unnecessary scrunching and rolling it just makes everything tougher.

 

 

I saw my life in that dough. I use my clumsy little hands, wasting time, space, words, and I do things willy-nilly. Instead of looking to the Master, I am tempted to scrap God's work in my life before it's done.

 

I make things tough.

 

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.-Philippians 1:6

 

It takes a rolling pin to knock me flat and roll my rebellious soul into repentance.

 

I'm not going to lie- it hurts.

 

In the hands of the ultimate Creator, I am molded and cut and shaped into delicious beauty.

Beauty worth savoring. Worth celebrating.

 

And whether or not the pain comes at the hand of myself or another, I always find that the pain is temporally and eternally worth it.

 

It is worth it.

 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 

-2 Corinthians 1:3-5

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. -1 Peter 1:6-7