After all, Chanelle knows that I am not Mrs. Clean. I'm aware that she knows me well enough to know that I could care less if there are a handful of crumbs left over on my table from breakfast or smudgy splotches on the windows from where my boys love to stand and press their faces against the glass.
Not only that, but she also lived with me for years and saw firsthand how I rarely even noticed if something was dusty and that I never owned a vacuum cleaner. She was the one who taught me how to do laundry our freshman year of college because I had forgotten my mom's tutorial.
She knows me. So why did I care? Why did I scrub?
The best I can come up with is that I wanted her to think, "Wow, Gretchen really has this wife and mom thing down. She makes it look easy! She's a natural!"
Or....something like that.
I wanted to appear to have it all together, so I could look like a rousing success story, an accomplished woman.
All of this, for someone who knows me better than almost anyone. All of this, for someone who already knows I am a good wife and mother. All of this, for someone who I know does NOT care about my house because she just wants conversation with me and to watch our kids play together.
The irony of this story lies in the fact that I totally forgot to clean up the basement, which is typically the messiest room of the house anyway. And where is the very first place the kids want to play?
The basement. Where the cushions are off the sofa from where Matt took his Sunday afternoon nap. Where cars and trains are strewn on the floor. Where old picture albums I had been paging through sit on top of a chair and our computer desk is covered with clothes we've been meaning to give away. The basement.
I was thinking of all this today and again how silly it was. But more than the silly factor of it all, it hit me how this is exactly what we tend to do with ourselves.
When we head out into the world, we neatly tuck everything into its proper place and scrub away the dirt so we glean with promise and minimize the things that others could criticize. But there lies below a basement where the mess dwells.
The appearance seems just right, but look a little closer. There are pieces of ourselves that we hide away, whether through shame or guilt or embarrassment, that cannot stay hidden forever. We can gloss and floss ourselves to a sheeny perfection, but the mess remains.
The insecurity. The anxiety. The sadness. The hurt. The loss. The anger. The questions. The doubt. The wound.
When I read books or watch movies, there is something very off-putting to me when the protagonist is too perfect. I have read books before where I am actually rooting for the main character to fail a little bit. It is annoying to me when a fictional character handles every situation perfectly...especially in Christian books.
My favorite all-time character is Anne Shirley. She is smart and passionate and savvy and strong. These are wonderful traits. She also has a quick temper and is kind of fruit loops sometimes. These are her messes. Anne Shirley is someone I can relate to because she is so beautifully messy. Give me a messy human over a perfect one any day (unless that perfect one is Jesus. Then give me Jesus).
I think this is one of the reasons I pursued counseling as a profession. I love peoples's messes. I long to tell them they are not alone in their messes but that there is help and hope and healing greater than they've ever dreamed.
There is a Love that knows and loves every inch of our mess (even that part that tries to appear to have it all together).
All we need to do is to open wide our basement doors and give access to the mess.
And when it comes to others' messes, let's offer grace abundantly to give people some space to work through it. Let's give them so much grace that they know they don't have to have it all together.
While you're at it, be a gem and grab a broom to sweep up that cobweb in the corner.
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