The blessing of the mess is relishing it in the moment.

I was up in the wee hours this morning, sifting through more than 20 years of Advent posts and praying about gathering them into a thoughtful resource. What would that look like? How can I best serve you? Ebook? Workshop? Videos? Picture tutorials? What would you want to see? What would the ultimate Advent resource from the heart of my home look like? Comment below to let me know.

But as I was sifting, I bumped into this little gem. And it made me still and quiet. We made this slideshow last year when someone commented on Facebook that blogs are so slick and polished and beautiful and carefully framed that it looks like no one has messes. I asked Mary Beth to spend a few minutes (by no means was this a comprehensive effort) and see if she could find blog evidence of our messes. She could and did and then she went one better. She collected the messes into a slideshow.

As I think about the stretch of time from Thanksgiving until New Year's and I gather my thoughts for an Advent talk I'm giving tomorrow, I am slayed by this video. The images bring back memories that are wholly good through the filter of time. But I'm sure that in the moment, the messes made me a little nuts. It is not one bit cliche to admit to you that I'd take the particular mess if I could have the moment again, too. 

So, yes, real families have real messes. The blessing of the mess is relishing it in the moment. But I'm not at all sure we can learn that without time as our teacher.

"Dirty Dishes" by Scotty McCreery is here.