In the Eyes of a Child, A Messy Room is a Good Thing

I came home from teaching tonight at around 8:50 after having left the house about 8:15 this morning. I  worked or drove for almost the full 12+ hours. Yesterday was similar except that Troy, Matt, and I had to be out until after 10 pm.

I am exhausted. I can feel my throat stinging, my head throbbing, and my body aching. As an SAT/ACT test prep instructor/entrepreneur and with the big spring tests coming up, this is just the very beginning of my busiest time of year,

and already I am feeling rundown and overwhelmed.

And my kids will feel it too

– right now, I can see it in Noah,

but it may be someone else who feels it more another day.

Last night, we came home at 10 pm to find Noah waiting excitedly at the top of the stairs. He wanted to tell me about his best ever basketball game, and his conversation started like this,

Aw Mom! You Should Have Been There… It was AWESOME… I had my best game EVER!

My little cutie patootie said exactly what I was thinking in the first sentence:

I Should Have Been There.

Technically, maybe I could have been there. I could have dropped the older boys off at class and driven back, gone to Noah’s game and returned to pick them up, but I need that time to return phone calls and emails…set up classes…BLOG! 🙂

But I still felt bad for missing his game.

And then he broke my heart again by asking for help on his homework. We worked on his vocabulary until almost 11; he got up to finish math with me at 5:30 this morning.

Please tell me there are many of us out there who absolutely detest Common Core!!! Let’s put an end to this insanity! 

Anyway, I came home tonight,

Kaleb had a bump on his head from where he had fallen while Troy was chasing him

I never even thought to ask why Troy was chasing him.

Chasing and other roughhousing are commonplace occurrences here,

and Noah needed help with his homework,

but Matt had made pork chops, baked potatoes, and broccoli for dinner,

the boys had straightened up a bit too,

and George had done the dishes.

My mom had also straightened a bit while she watched Kaleb this morning.

So, for the amount of time I am able to spend cleaning, the house is not too bad – far from white glove worthy, but not too bad nonetheless…

except for my bedroom…

which looks like my dresser threw up – violently – everywhere…

and like tissues were plucked from their boxes, thrown in the air, and allowed to drift to precarious resting spots…

and randomly placed papers and shoes and books and comforters and donations and even the vacuum are strewn haphazardly about the small space,

And as I brought Kaleb in to sleep at around 9:30 tonight, thankful to be getting in earlier than usual, I opened my bedroom door to the disaster area that I knew would await, the disaster that awaits me every night.

My Bedroom

My bedroom is always the last room to be cleaned, always the messiest room in the house (other than maybe my car <sigh>)

If anyone saw my bedroom…I’d probably have to run away in humiliation,

but I’ve thought I’d have to leave in humiliation many times before,

yet somehow I’m still here.

So Kaleb and I walked to the bed, me lifting him up so he wouldn’t risk slipping on the piles of stuff (Not quite as bad as an episode of hoarders, but I may be getting close!).

I apologized to him, as I do every night, for the messy room. I asked, as I always do, if he thought someday I would be get my room cleaned up and stop being so lazy.

And that’s when my little angel spoke up. He very sweetly, in his high pitched little four year old voice said, “It’s okay Mommy. I like your room. Your room is fun.  Your room is you. I see books you like so I can read someday and clothes you wear to smell like you when you’re gone. There are always papers for me to draw pictures on here. This is the best room to play.”

And I looked at my room with new eyes. Yes, what I saw was true, but what he said was true too.

But Jesus tells us,

Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 18:3)

Well, my room is far from the kingdom of heaven, and yet, if I change my perspective and become like a child, like the precious little angel now sleeping next to me, if I learn to see things through his eyes, with his joy, with his innocence, with his Love filtering out life’s messes, maybe I would look at my room with something other than dread, maybe even pride.

Pride that I have a roof over my head, a new bed under my sleeping son, and a mess on the floor because I put my time into other, more important things. The sanctuary I hope to have one day will still be there when my little angels are grown, and then I will have time to make my bedroom my peace, my sanctuary, my refuge

How do you see your messy rooms? What other parts of your life are messy in your eyes but understandable and forgivable in another’s eyes?

View yourself through the eyes of a precious child. You are loved – messes and all.

God Bless…