"Move Over Messy; God Wants More"

Today marks one week since our home became Grand Central Station (again).  Our family of four was joined by a 17 year old and her 18 month old son for a month.  Our 3 and 4 year old girls join us every weekend until next month when our home becomes their home for awhile.  That makes for a Crazy 8 the majority of the week!

As I grab a few minutes on the quiet of the back porch (I bet I just jinxed myself!), all 6 kids and the hubby are out front playing baseball, hopscotch, sidewalk chalk and probably things I don't want to know since they'll require cleaning up a mess.

We have survived our first week.  This "Mama Ministry" has been successful.  Everyone has survived, relatively unscathed, and we've met challenges we couldn't have foreseen.  As you can read on my Facebook page (Diary of a Messy Mama), there have been daily highs and lows.  That's real life folks.

What has struck me the most over this past week is how limited I have viewed my abilities.  I have  put myself in a box and more honestly, I've put God in a box, as to when and how He could use me.  All I see is messy.  God sees more.  Not in me, but in HIM IN ME.  This messy Mama likes predictability, safety, organization, and plain and simple---a neat packaged life.  When those self-imposed expectations get messy, I tend to streamline and pull back.  Simplify.

But when life gets messy, God desires more of me and sometimes that means more mess.  Can I live like that; more messy?  Can I restrain my expectations so that God can use me as He desires?  It's a stretch people.  This chic thrives in her comfort zone.  God wants more; and it never seems to be in our comfort zone.

Well, the kids and hubby have found me on the back porch.  They are all heading up the street to the park for a game of wiffle ball and asked me to join them.  As I close this blog, I just got a text to grab toys that they need and forgot to take with them to the park (yay for technology!).  But before I start walking to meet them, I'm grabbing the can of bug spray I see, because something tells this Mama it will prevent a lot of future whining!

This is the evidence I found as to what the other 7 were up to while I was blogging:
I love being a messy Mama......

The Mama Ministry

There are times when God lays something on your heart that just doesn't make sense, but He does it in such a way that you know it was from Him.

I've been a messy Mama for awhile now.  My son turned 13 (yikes!) this winter and my daughter turned 11 (what?) this spring.  That's a lot of MESSY!  Plenty of mistakes, but plenty of miracles too.

Just recently, God called me back into my home full-time.  He asked me to step away from the Community Bible Study ministry in my hometown and focus on the ministry of being a Mama and a wife.  A Mama to my own children, and a Mama to foster children.  But of higher priority, a better wife to my man.  Marriage can be even more messy than Mamahood!  (Can I get an AMEN!) 

But with this call on my life, came a loss of writing and loss of intimacy with women.  Writing is like breathing for me at times.  Especially when it's what God writes through my fingers.  There's an exhilaration like none other when I sit down at my laptop and God starts pouring His words all over the keys and screen!  And the sisterhood of women just makes this girly-girl dance on the inside!

My compassionate God knew this new journey would be a sacrifice for me.  Yet He planted a dream in my mind and heart that would meet this desire to write and connect with women;  while giving God the glory in what may seem mundane and repetitive---being a Mama.

There is no greater ministry than being a godly Mama.  We shape our children's adult years NOW.  Good and bad.  That's a significantly high calling!  One we can only accomplish through Jesus Christ.

So, I invite you to join me on this crazy, messy journey that only God knows where it is going.  It may crash and burn, but it may grow wings and fly.  Either way, God is in it and only His purposes will prevail.  

God is writing this story for his Glory!  And so the "Diary of a Messy Mama"  begins...........