The Stuff'ed Life

Hello Dear Abandoned Blog,

Seeing as my blogs usually come after hours spent quietly by myself, processing life and God and events, the blogs have been very few as of late. Mostly given that I am rarely alone with my thoughts for hours on end these days.

I want to go ahead and include a disclaimer, just because I don't have time to sit with my thoughts for hours on end, does not mean that I am upset with how life is going.

I am an internal processor but I'm also an ESFP and so I live my life in the moment, feeling every emotion all at once and leaving thinking and judgement for a later time. If I don't have time to think, I simply move on, however, it usually lends to some emotional breakdown where I cry for an hour or two because my brain is thinking allllll of the thoughts and feelings all of the emotions at once and if not processed and sorted out I become so emotionaly overwhelmed.. I just cry.

So, you can safely bet that I've done a lot of crying over the last few months, but that's not a bad thing really. I learned in college that a good cry does wonders for the soul.

ANYWAYS.. that's not at all what brought me here right now. What brought me here is a profound little nugget that I've been turning over in my head these last 30 hours.

Let me preface: These last months have been crazy. To start, long distance dating requires choices to be intentional with "spare time". Sleeping in on weekends is somewhat of a myth these days and with that, the slow groggy mornings spent with coffee and my Bible and prayer journal and nothing planned. Having two siblings get married in the same month has meant a lot of planning, preparing, and long conversations with people on the phone.Besides those BIG things, I've joined another church and with joining another church I've joined another Bible study. So these last few months have been doing the juggle of event planning, working a full time job, attending two Bible studies, two churches, a one-on-one discipleship, getting together with specific friends on "evenings off" and then traveling weekends.

I'm amazed if I get my laundry washed... MORE amazed if I put it away.. which, honestly, has happened less times than I care to admit in the last couple of months. I've managed to make my bed a few times and call home every now and again and hopefully eventually I'll have time enough to have more than just a bag of sliced turkey and some eggs in my fridge. Grocery shopping is the least of my worries these days.

Again, none of these things are bad. I've been overwhelmingly filled with joy these last few months and my heart has begun to grow at God's stretching and my heart has been dancing continuously.

I managed to clean my car a while back and between my traveling and lack of time, my car has slowly become a graveyard of half drank water bottles, empty mason jars, plastic bags of items passed on to me that I left behind somewhere along with church bulletins and gas receipts. Every time my sweet, taller-than-me boyfriend gets in my car to drive us somewhere and moves the seat back so that he can get his legs in, all of everything I tried to shove under the seat is instantly revealed and I always apologize by saying, "Sorry.. my life is a mess." And he always reassures me that it's fine and he's aware of the state of my car and that doesn't mean my life is falling apart.

Once I tried to put all of the things that were on the seats of my car into my trunk and that worked for a week. But now my trunk is full, mostly with things I might need while traveling, and it just adds to the feeling like my life is out of control.

Yesterday, I needed to get something out of my trunk and hesitated when I saw a young child pedaling his way around the cars on his tricycle. I thought to myself that he'd probably pedal away before I got to my car, but to my disappointment, he parked himself behind my trunk when I went to pop it open. I reached in and grabbed what I needed and looked at him and said, "My car is a mess." And I was genuinely embarrassed.. in front of a 6 year old.

He looked at me and cheerfully said, "Your cars not a mess, it just has a lot of stuff in it."

Be still my heart. I almost cried right then and there. That was just a balm to my insecure little heart.

I just suddenly realized that maybe my life isn't a mess.. it just has a lot of stuff in it.

And when I visited my newly married sister later that day and she apologized for the state of her living room, currently filled with the stuff they received at their wedding saying, "Sorry my house is a mess," I cheerfully passed on the joyful little nugget the 6 yr old had said to me. "Your living room isn't a mess, Pearl. It just has a lot of stuff in it."

It's such a hopeful way of putting it. When something is a "mess" its more of a disaster and it's bad and it needs to be fixed. When something has "a lot of stuff in it,"its not hopeless. You can just take some stuff out and it's fine.

And I realize that at some point, something more needs to give.. and very soon I will be taking a lot of things off my plate. A full plate isn't bad. But, I've been squeezing my quiet times in a little bit in the morning and a little bit in the evening before bed and it just hasn't been enough time with the Lord.

There's a big difference between spending time talking about God (Bible studies..church... etc) and talking TO God. And in all the chaos and running around, I've missed our hours long alone times. I'm back to a breaking point where I need to just re-organize and have less... stuff, going on.

And that is where I am at the moment. My life is stuffed full with wonderful people, wonderful adventures and a wonderful God. Now I just need to spend time praying and finding out what stuff I need to re-organize.

God is good and I am growing, which is really the most important part of life anyways.