Eyes that see

"Look at this mess!" I said.  I could have probably stopped there.  But I didn't.  I kept going.  "Ornaments! Everywhere!  Boxes all over the floor!  Those hooks are all tangled! What in the world happened in here?"  I asked the five year old sitting beneath the twinkling Christmas tree.  The boy just looked up.  He didn't have much to say.  So, I finished up my mommy-tirade with a good ol',  "Pick this mess up, NOW."  

That was all in the first ten minutes of our tree decorating event.

  

Fa la la la la la la la laaaaaaaaa.

It was after dinner that he wanted to start in on the ornaments.  I said "sure."  He started, and in true five year old fashion, his wasn't a neat and orderly process.  I somehow acted surprised by this. Hence the mommy tirade.

  

An hour later, my words to him were still playing over in my head.  It hit me.  Right above the ornamental mess on the floor, was a tree, a beautiful tree, with ornaments on it.  Shining, crafty, round, sparkly ornaments.  Ornaments that my boy had proudly hung on that tree.  

But I didn't see the ornaments.  I didn't see his already hung decorations.  I didn't see his efforts.  I didn't see his creativity.  I didn't see his excitement to help.  I didn't see his initiative.

  

I DID NOT SEE THE BEAUTY. 

My eyes saw the mess.

I was so honed in on what had gone wrong, terribly wrong on my living room floor that I missed an opportunity to celebrate and embrace beauty.  I was so focused on the things that weren't going as planned that I lost an opportunity to affirm my baby.  And I whined about something that is purely irrelevant in the scheme of life.  I mean GASP! a messy living room floor?!  Who ever has heard of such a thing!

Eyes that only see the mess?  Those eyes ruin my life.  Suck all the joy right out of me.  Out of the people around me too.  Eyes that only see the muck?  Those are eyes that are looking down.  Usually because I am discouraged and too tired to do the work to lift my head.  Lifting my head to see beauty, even beauty that is just six inches up off the floor- right in front of my face, that takes both effort and commitment.  

Ann Voskamp says our eyes are the laziest part of our body.  I tend to agree.

 

It is easy to look about and see the messes.  They. Are. Everywhere.  Especially when I begin to compare myself to others.  There are about a billion ways I fall short in the "Has it all together" category.  And my kids?  Don't even get me started on the messes they create.  Everything from neighborhood drama to couch art to water table play with chalk- wet chalk everywhere.  No shortage of messes here.

The more I see the messes, the more I look for the messes, the bigger the messes get.  When it comes to messes, you will find what it is you are looking for.  That is a promise.

Seek mess.  Find mess.

So, is the converse true?  

Seek beauty.  Find beauty?

Seek love.  Find love?

Seek peace.  Find peace?

Can I train my lazy eyes to first see beauty, love, peace?  I am not asking for the messes to disappear.  I am just wondering how different my messes would feel if I first saw the beauty.  And is that even possible???  As a mom with little ones, is that realistic????

The Middle Duck says it is.

I apologized to him later, while tucking him in.  I told him that I was actually the one who had messed up.  That I chose to make the mess the most important part.  That my eyes were naughty and chose to see ugly before pretty.  He forgave me.  I told him that once my eyes really saw what beauty there was to see on that tree, that I felt so thankful for his hard work in decorating.

  

That boy looked up at me again.  This time with something to say, "Mommy, it is just that sometimes making a mess is just what happens when  you are creating art."  Huh.  Ever get those one line sermons from your children?  If you haven't they sort of suck.  In a good way though.  Maybe the way to start seeing the beauty before the mess is to actually begin to believe that the mess is part of the beauty. That the blessing can happen in the mess.  That sometimes it won't be until the very end that we will see the actual masterpiece.  And that my friends is TRUST.  With a good dose of HOPE tossed in for good measure.  All that beauty that is mixed in with in the mess????  The beauty we can train our eyes to see, even before the finished product?  Well, I think that stuff is best described as love notes.  Love notes from a Creator.  But I won't see those love notes, much less read them- if my eyes are trained on the living room floor, looking for tangles in the tinsel. 

     

Lord Jesus, give me eyes to see all messes as just art in process.  Let me trust that in all things ugly, You are working to make things good and beautiful.  Help me lift my head, over and over and over again to see the beauty, the love, the peace.  Let me look for those things first.  So that every mess will be seen in it's proper context.