Coffee for Your Heart
Holley Gerth
"Our Mess Can Actually Mean Progress"
Once a month my husband and I provide dinner for the girls at Saving Grace, a transitional living home for young women who age out of the foster system or would otherwise be homeless. Right now the kitchen at Saving Grace is being remodeled, which can make meal details a bit challenging. But as my friend who does the food with us said as we looked at the construction area, "Mess means progress."
For days afterward, her words echoed in my mind. Mess means progress. She's an interior designer so she understands that between the vision and the reality must come the mess. I thought about how our lives are often that way too. I personally would like to skip that phase. I want to go straight to the completed project, the resolved struggle, the happy ending to the story. I don't like the phase where the dust is flying, the hammers are banging and the paint is half-finished on the wall.
Yet the mess is necessary for the beauty to happen. So next time we feel ashamed of the mess in our lives maybe we can pause and say, "Mess means progress." It means worthwhile work is happening in our hearts. It means good plans are coming to be. It means Someone is working out a greater purpose in our lives beyond what we can yet see.
"He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion" (Philippians 1:6). Where do we most often find Jesus? Not in the neat, quiet corners of our lives. Not in the Pinterest-perfect parts. Not in any of the places where we think He'd like to be. No, if He is the one doing the work then where we find Him is right in the middle of the mess. He's not afraid of it because He can already see what it will one day become. And He will not quit until it's done.
XOXO
Holley Gerth
Holley Gerth
"Our Mess Can Actually Mean Progress"
Once a month my husband and I provide dinner for the girls at Saving Grace, a transitional living home for young women who age out of the foster system or would otherwise be homeless. Right now the kitchen at Saving Grace is being remodeled, which can make meal details a bit challenging. But as my friend who does the food with us said as we looked at the construction area, "Mess means progress."
For days afterward, her words echoed in my mind. Mess means progress. She's an interior designer so she understands that between the vision and the reality must come the mess. I thought about how our lives are often that way too. I personally would like to skip that phase. I want to go straight to the completed project, the resolved struggle, the happy ending to the story. I don't like the phase where the dust is flying, the hammers are banging and the paint is half-finished on the wall.
Yet the mess is necessary for the beauty to happen. So next time we feel ashamed of the mess in our lives maybe we can pause and say, "Mess means progress." It means worthwhile work is happening in our hearts. It means good plans are coming to be. It means Someone is working out a greater purpose in our lives beyond what we can yet see.
"He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion" (Philippians 1:6). Where do we most often find Jesus? Not in the neat, quiet corners of our lives. Not in the Pinterest-perfect parts. Not in any of the places where we think He'd like to be. No, if He is the one doing the work then where we find Him is right in the middle of the mess. He's not afraid of it because He can already see what it will one day become. And He will not quit until it's done.
XOXO
Holley Gerth
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