Beautiful mess

“I’m a mess, I’m a mess, I’m a mess right now,

Don’t fix me up, just lay me down,

You fill me up to pour me out,

I am undone.”

-Steffany Frizzell, spontaneous song

Think of all the masterpieces which wouldn’t exist if the artists weren’t allowed to make a mess. What a loss, right? Now think of all the spiritual, mental and emotional masterpieces that don’t exist because we don’t allow ourselves and others to make a mess. Isn’t that an even greater loss than the artistic masterpieces?

Sometimes we need a mess in order to create beauty. Sometimes we value order way too much, so we don’t let the process happen. But if we want to grow, we must allow things to come up to the surface. When things come up to the surface, it can become messy, because we aren’t used to having those deep things out in the open.

A couple of weeks ago I was in one of those very messy growing seasons. It was painful, it was confusing and it sure was chaotic. A growth-bomb exploded in the room of my heart. The floor was filled with pictures and photographs, showing experiences from the past and the present. The walls had splashes of paint, all the different colors of my emotion-pallet were dripping from the walls. Through the splashes of color there were written words and sentences. Some were lies and some were truths, some were carved into the walls and some were just written with a pencil, some were ending with an exclamation mark and some were ending in a point. Question marks as big as chairs were seated at the sides of the room, asking for answers to sit in them. Fears were shivering in some corners of shadow, holding on to insecurities to cover them. Every time I decided to leave the fast stream of daily life for a moment and entered the room in my heart, I was shocked by the mess.

My character, habits and nature screamed: “Clean it up! Create order in this chaos!” But somehow I could find beauty in this big, exploded mess. I fought against the urge to clean it up, the only thing I did was walk around often to observe the things that were happening in the big messy process of growth and learn from it. And every time I walked around the room, I opened a window to let the Wind in. I trusted the One who was standing right in the middle of the mess, He knew what He was doing and knew when it would be the time to clean it up. I believed it was not only going to be okay, it was also going to create something beautiful.

And it did. I learned more from the weeks my heart was in this messy process than in the weeks my heart was orderly. The mess was necessary for God to paint the masterpiece of my identity clearer, more beautiful and with brighter colors. Because I could let the Wind, the Holy Spirit, do what He wanted to do in this process, I was able to even enjoy the process before seeing the result. I often had to make the choice to not try to fix myself or let others fix me, but just allow myself to feel crappy for some moments (but not let my feelings take over completely!). I had to choose not to search for the easy answers to my questions, but be okay to not be sure about some things and not have my opinion as strong and secure as always. I had to choose to not pretend like the pains and fears weren’t there, but face them and work through them and their causes together with God. I had to choose not to let the process end before we actually worked through the depths of the problem. I let Go(d) and the mess turned into beauty in His timing.

I want to encourage you to have the courage to let a process last for as long as it takes and to not be afraid of messes. Let your roots grow deep, even if it hurts to grow through a hard layer in the ground. Allow messes, not only for yourself, but also for others. Sometimes people don’t want to get fixed, don’t want answers to their questions or a solution to their problems. Sometimes they just need a shoulder the cry on, a hug to tell them they’re loved, a listening silence which invites them to share their hearts and an acceptance of who they are, what they’re going through and what they feel. It’s okay if the answer to ‘how are you’ is not ‘good’, because you can rather be real than perfect. Allow yourself and others to be real by not expecting perfection. The most beautiful masterpieces come out of the most chaotic messes.

“Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox.”
                - Proverbs