Junk drawer........

I wonder how many people truely feel like there life is organized and systematic? I wonder how many people really feel as if there is a method to the madness? Lately we have been so crazy busy I can hardly think straight. I feel like life is complete chaos but somehow in the midst there is peace. I have tried to become organized and have gotten sooo much better at this but I still have spots here and there that seem messy. A humorous battle between Scott and I has unfolded over time about how messy my minivan is. Toys, socks, sports equipment, food, receipts, earrings, wrappers, papers, you name it my van probably has it. My defense to has always been that the van is utilized alot more, especially with Macie and is put through alot more life experiences which gather clutter. My purse is like this also, I am sure if I was a contestant on the game show "Lets Make a Deal" where they pull random things out of their bag I would walk away a big winner. Can any of you relate? Do you have a junk drawer or room in your house where all the extra misfit stuff goes?

Somewhere along the way the "stuff" accumulated and didn't make it through the transition period. My earrings in the van are sitting there because at one point I failed to get them back in their designated spot so they are now sitting somwhere random.Junk drawers don't just happen overnight, its a process of getting lost in the transition. Macie even has a junk drawer with toys and random kids stuff. It seems like regardless how hard I try sometimes when I'm doing a major cleaning spree in my house I always find some random thing I have no clue what to do with and so in the junk drawer it goes. This made me think about how often we get lost in the transition periods or seasons in life and things get messy. Whether it be jobs, marriage, busyness, parenting, service, volunteering, health crisis, loss of a loved one, financial downfall or whatever we all go through seasons in life.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-11 "TO EVERYTHING there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted, A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, A time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away, A time to rend and a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. What profit remains for the worker from his toil? I have seen the painful labor and exertion and miserable business which God has given to the sons of men with which to exercise and busy themselves.He has made everything beautiful in its time."

The difficult thing during the transition of seasons is do you adapt to the change, do you organize the stuff in the midst of the transition or do you just shove it in a junk drawer? I think alot of times we do this with our emotions. We dont know exactly how to deal with them, understand them, or appreciate them but instead we find ourselves disassociated from them and trying to seperate them from one season to another. Its as if we can't decide what category or what spot emotions or things in life belong so we just shove it away somewhere anywhere, past hurts, past mistakes, past failures. We try to mend our hurts or clean out the mess in our lives but there are some things that are confusing, they don't make sense, there is no rhyme or reason and because we can't organize them or put them in a spot we find ourselves throwing them in a random drawer in our hearts, closing the drawer, out of sight out of mind. Regardless of how messy or disorganized that drawer is we know what we have put in there, it has the most random pieces of life but when we choose we can open it up and find whatever we need. Sure its chaotic but its personal and we understand it so thats all that matters. Even though we think this system works in life it would be much easier if we really cleaned out those drawers and organized everything they contain.

Are you moving from one season to another in life and feel like so much stuff is just sitting in the midst of the chaos? I just encourage you that instead of putting it away in the junk drawer to really take time to organize, understand and grab ahold of it all. Appreciate the place that you have been and where God is taking you and along the way don't forget to be reminded of the beauty through the struggles.