it's growing

Sam and I hung out Saturday. I like hanging out with Sam and I always tell myself I am not going to bring her to our apartment because the state of my apartment most Saturdays is not a good example of the way a young wife should keep her home. It always seems to happen that we end up at the apartment and I half-heartedly appologize for its condition. Half-heartedly because she's used to it by now, and I wonder if she even believes me.

This Saturday we walked in to a particularly messy apartment and instead of appologizing I said something like, "You know - I really want to be one of those people who has it all together. I really want to be one of those amazing women who can work full time (at an office or as a mother) and do ministry work and be creative and still have a home that's in order. I really want to, but I just can't yet." Sam chuckled and looked at me as though she couldn't possibly care any less what my apartment looks like. We proceeded to dye hair in the kitchen - making an even greater mess.

Later, I drove her home and on the way back to Timothy and grilled cheese and Ratatouille, was thinking about some of what Pastor talked about that morning at a leadership meeting. Mostly I was trying to diagnose myself as either a Manager or a Leader according to what bullet-pointed characteristics I could remember (I contend I'm an even hybrid), and then some about ministry often being messy. "If it's growing, it's going to be messy."

And I remembered a Brian Zahnd sermon about being born again, and the conviction we often go through, and a comment he made about how birth is a messy process.

And I stepped through the door of our apartment onto a soaked cloth rug. I paused for the briefest of moments to survey the chair in the middle of the kitchen that, instead of being put away, had become a coat hangar, the tinfoil scattered around the floor, the laundry waiting to be put away, the dishes waiting to be washed, and my adorable husband waiting for me to sit down and watch a movie with him.

I felt the corners of my mouth pull up slightly as I secretly ordained myself Pastor of Apartment-Keeping, preached my first official (brief and amazing) sermon silently to the socks in the corner about how our ministry is growing so naturally it's a little messy right now, and sat down on the couch with my Timmy.