When God meets you in the middle.
This year, I gave my husband a closet makeover for Christmas. We clean and organize on a regular basis, but this was extreme! I could have been on the next episode of The Edit. We purged, and washed the baseboards, painted and installed a fancy light fixture, built shelves and then folded and hung his very few remaining possessions neatly into place. As I spoke with friends about the process, many of them asked for before and after photos. I didn’t have them. I was able to show them the finished product, but it hadn’t occurred to me to take a picture of the untidy situation we had BEFORE. Who wants to see that!? And don’t even get me started on the MIDDLE! That stage in between, where you’ve dragged everything out to sort, and there are open paint cans and piles of laundry and dusty old shoes! I only had an AFTER picture.
A few weeks ago, our team connected with a single mom in need of beds and dressers. She was just moving into her new apart and was visibly embarrassed by the state of her home. She apologized for the mess, nervously scooted boxes out of the way and picked up sippy cups off the floor. It was hard to connect with her, because she was so distracted by the mess. My first thought was “she’s in the MIDDLE!” and that’s a chaotic place. I relate to her there. “I get it.” I said, “this is the hardest part. The middle. But once we get the beds in and the dressers set up, we can start to settle in. Don’t worry about this mess. We’ve all been there!” And as silly as it sounds, in that moment, I heard the holy spirit speak. All the families we serve are in the middle. (and quite honestly, so are we!) We have to have mercy on that stage knowing that the AFTER picture is already in the mind of God. I know from experience that the before stage, in a lot of ways, seems more comfortable and workable than the total disarray caused by that middle, “drag it all out and deal with it” stage. Many of us find the middle so daunting that we remain in the before and lose hope for the after.
My encouragement for today is this:
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” ~Revelation 22:13.
AND at the very same time :
“I will never leave you nor forsake you” ~Hebrews 13:5
…He’s there, with his hands all over our timelines!
“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation [including the chaos of our own brokenness], will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ~Romans 8:38.
If he’s not intimidated by any of those things, if his love is not deterred … I’m confident he can handle the messes in the middle. Let’s press into this love that makes us inseparable from our savior and commit to displaying that love to our neighbors. Knowing that God is the beginning, and the end and he doesn’t leave any of us in the middle… he always has the AFTER picture in his sights.
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