Messes

I probably spend the majority of my day when I am at home, picking up messes. Made mostly by my kids. Lately it has been Aubrey and her books. She loves her books. And she has a lot. She will bring them to me, one by one throughout the day, and climb up on my lap for me to read them to her. We usually get through two to three pages, before she climbs down, and goes in search for another book. At least five times a day I find her in her room, all of her books strewn about the floor. So at least five times a day, we pick them up and put them back on the shelves in their rightful place. Why not just wait until the end of the night you ask? Because I can't stand to see this mess, and watch her walk all over her books (slipping and sliding on them and falling down, and although that should be the main reason for my picking them up, it is really that I can't stand the mess). I find myself getting aggravated and annoyed at having to clean up all the messes my kids make everyday more and more with each mess. And then God gently taps me on the shoulder, and reminds me that I won't always have these messes to clean up. Someday, my kids will be grown and gone, and I will silently pray for the messes to fill my life. Sometimes all it takes is the gentle tap, sometimes He has to smack me on the back of the head. Either way, I usually get it, what ever it is He is trying to tell me. So I am going to try to remember that when Aubrey has all 500 of her books all over the house, or Austin's dinosaurs are in every corner of every room, and the Lego's and blocks are all over the floor, and every stuffed animal they each own are all over their rooms, that someday soon, I will miss them.