When you are a mommy of three small children and not the most organized individual, your home may appear to have been ransacked to the onlooker… which is why I often draw my blinds… and panic when the doorbell rings. Just this morning I asked Colette to fold up clothes that she had decided against wearing and put them back in her dresser. She reminded me in a very logical argument that my own closet had a pile of clothes on the floor, as she edged a tangle of shirts, skirts and tights into the closet with her toe and attempted to close the door.
This week the house and the children have been overwhelming, leading to a few desperate Facebook posts. My husband was out of town, I am preparing for my sister’s wedding, and potty training Mary has lead to exhausting amounts of laundry that have me fearing my next water bill. Offers of help were made and I did not respond. I am not one to easily accept help because enlisting help often requires a full revelation of the actual mess. Oh, I can admit to you that my house is a mess and leave to your imagination how bad it might be. You will give me the benefit of the doubt that it can’t be “that bad,” and I will try to convince you that it is. But the thought of you actually witnessing firsthand that there is crusted oatmeal on my stovetop from this morning, makes me shudder. It’s not just the oatmeal- it’s the trail of dirty burp cloths, abandoned socks, and toy debris that I can not keep up with. To allow help to actually enter my home, I would go into a cleaning fit that would hide the extent of the disaster so the individual would be left to think I am a delusional perfectionist. I am not, but I sure want you to think I am.
The truth is we all have problems that we admit to having, but when it comes down to revealing the very depth of the problem, we only let a few individuals, if that, see beyond the surface. It can be a very dangerous situation, leaving our potential help to consider that our problem is not that bad and under control. The inability to admit to others just how messy our life can be can leave us lonely and overwhelmed.
I have found that confession can lead to connection with others. In my circle of mom friends, we bond over confessions of tempers lost, rebellious children, and housework run amuck. There is release in discovering that you are not alone in your problems. In some ways, our desire to hide our problems away in a private recess of our mind, is a selfish decision to not help the next individual struggling with the same burden. Appearing to be a mother who has got it all together, leaves a lot of other mothers wondering what their problem is and why it seems to be so tough for them. Perhaps my messy home could be a ministry to them!
At the heart of what we hide, is shame. Like Adam and Eve, we hide because we are ashamed of what we have done and what we have left undone. We fear that if we reveal our inabilities, addictions, and sins, the world will find us unworthy of love. So we place our dirty laundry in closets not visible and leave it largely unaddressed. And we find ourself doing damage control to keep our help from finding that closet in fear they will turn on their heels and run screaming.
And maybe some of this world might. But God will not. Have you ever wondered why an all-knowing God requires us to confess our sins to Him? He knows what we will do before it is done. What good is this step of confession? It is not for His knowledge, but yours. Are you fully admitting to God how messy your life is, or are you pretending He can only see the surface? Friend, you will know the full extent of His love when it covers over that very ugliness that you have been hiding, but when you hide your sin, you allow His love to only come so far. This is the barrier that sin creates and it prevents God from helping you with the mess and it allows the Devil to hang it over your head as evidence of unworthiness.
But the truth that will set you free of this burden of sin is that you are so worthy of God’s love that He sent His one and only Son to suffer and die for those very sins you pretend you can hide from Him. He wants you to know that His love reaches even to the very depths of the ugliest part of your life, but if you do not let Him into that closet, He can not begin to help you clean it up. Do not limit the power of the love of God in all areas of your life. That mess is bigger than you are, but not bigger than the power of God.