Thinking Thoughts On Unglued (The Prisoners)

*To those just poking in, I am reading "Unglued" by Lysa TerKeurst as part of an online bible study group.  Many of my blogs are responses, thoughts, etc. to that book.  I highly recommend the book...especially if you ever come "unglued".*

 I was reading in chapter 3 (“The Prisoners”) where Lysa was talking about her mess of a closet, when I looked over at the pile on my bed.  Ha.  Just this morning I had picked up all of the clean clothes that my closet had vomited on my bedroom floor and threw them on my bed.  Just this morning I said to myself, “Self, when you get home, you will clean up this mess – or you don’t go to bed”.  Clever, right?  I thought so.  So, as I sat in my bed, with the pile of clean clothes next to me and even resting on my feet, reading…I looked over and laughed.  I related to Lysa more than words could properly express.  

So, I read on about “David” and how sources had said that “(Michelangelo) never left his David.  For more than two years he worked on and slept beside the six-ton slab of marble whose subject called to him from inside the unchiseled places”.  I looked over at my “David”, it definitely needed chiseled – to be honest, it still sits there, needing chiseling.  Thank heaven it is not a six-ton slab and honestly if it starts talking to me from the inside, I will just have to reach in and figure out which child I buried under there.  However, my “David” expands beyond my closet and bedroom, and overflows into my house, car, work, etc.  My “David” has wore me out, physically, mentally, and emotionally.  It has been my embarrassment and at times, I’ve defeated it, only for me to realize it still needs maintenance.

I am the single mother to three very active kids.  I also work full-time, in addition to dance classes, speech classes, church, etc.  It’s not easy to have a spotless house, it’s not easy to have a clean car, it’s not easy to have an organized desk, but it’s not impossible.  It may take time, but each day I can take a moment to chisel away at my mess – and in ALL areas of my life.  While I allow God to “chip away the stone that doesn’t look like” me, I also know that God has given me the ability to know what a child of God should look like and the ability to do something about the chaos in my life.   

This is the part where I set the book down, the part where I close the computer, the part where I send the kids outside to play basketball, and I get to chiseling.