A Merciful Mess

Yesterday started out as a really hard day. I was ready to give up and forget the whole thing by the time we finished breakfast. We pulled ourselves together and went to church anyway. And by the time we left church, there was some light breaking through the hurt of the morning. Once home, we decided to spend the rest of the day relaxing as a family and went for a bike ride.

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That was the right choice. We needed the time outdoors filling our hearts up as a family.

My boys showered me with flowers on a day when I really needed a backpack full of them.

And I thought, life is messy. I used to think there are hard seasons and you just need get through them…and sometimes, that’s probably true.

But more and more, I think it’s not a season at all — it’s just the way it is. Life is beauty and ashes mingled together. There are hard mornings that bleed into merciful afternoons. There’s tears and frustration, joy, and laughter with the same people on the same day.

A lot of life is learning how to gracefully hold both beauty and ashes at the same time. It’s learning to let them both be what they are without trying to pretend otherwise. It’s trusting the heart of God who both gives and takes away.

I’m learning to stop watching for a bend in the road where we come out on a smooth plateau. But rather, to keep my hands stretched out to the One who walks before me and lights my way through every peak and valley. He, the giver of beauty. He, the mercy in ashes.