"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......