Have you ever started something enthusiastically and then found yourself down the line in a reality that appears nothing like what you envisaged? You had buckets of energy to begin with and it seemed like a good idea, but now you are tired and not even sure if it’s worth all the effort. Perhaps things have gotten challenging, complicated and untidy and you are wondering whether to panic or despair. Google coined the phrase “The Messy Middle” but I think those words ring true for us all in the stories of our lives. The messy middle is a valuable part of the process. You are doing great, don’t give up!
Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. – Robin Sharma
I’ve told you before that I belong to the Compulsive Furniture Mover’s Society. It’s imaginary but very real. Now, when the ‘Great Upheaval’ is all over, my family enjoy the benefits; they rave over the new look, the order, the seamless flow and the increased space. Whilst it’s all happening, though, I notice my loved ones leopard crawling or making themselves flat against walls with that same look in their eyes that some dogs get when you take them to the vet for their vaccinations. So I am getting mixed messages. Do I have a condition that requires therapy to get to the roots of or is it a strength and I should be running workshops on the art of single handedly turning the house upside down as a means to an end? I mean, it’s not like I do it every day. And when I do I uncover all kinds of things that we thought were lost forever. Besides, how would we have known that the view into the garden improves when four chairs and a table go somewhere else? I could go and work for Ikea, staging living areas for a living, but what would be the eternal fun of that? I have something as priceless as a family to create a comfortable home for. Sometimes it’s a monumental task and things get crazy, but it’s worth it in the end.
We, recently, invited friends for dinner when all was calm one lazy Sunday afternoon. Soon after they accepted, I thought about how the children could never find their pyjamas after their baths because their wardrobe was in a room with poor lighting. We heaved and pulled that one giant piece until it was perfectly in position, right under the down lights in their bedroom where it should have been all along. In order to get it there, we had to displace a smaller cupboard and a workbench. I then emptied the wardrobe of it’s contents and refilled it from several other sources and before I knew it, piles of clothes, homeless baskets, tubs and bags lay strewn around the house as if a hurricane had swept through. Our friends arrived to find my husband emergency-cooking the food I had invited them to eat whilst I made a pathway for us to walk through. When their baby needed feeding, my friend sat nursing her little guy amongst the mounds looking very like the loveliest little mole peering out over the top of her mountain of earth. What started off as a simple rearrange resulted in one child commenting “It looks like we have just moved in!”
Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end. – John Lennon (good on him.)
If you start marriage, don’t throw in the towel when a mountain of troubles build up. There are missions that we must not abort when we get tired or lose the plot. We have been married long enough to realise that troubles either disappear or our perspective changes or as we keep chipping away they diminish and hope begins to rise as we discover the hard work has not been in vain. We learn to be better at this game and new pleasant spaces come into being. Sometimes something worthwhile and good gets started and a complete undoing occurs before any meaningful rebuilding can occur. Our chaos turns into order and we turn into something much better than what we were.
The middle is messy but it’s also where the magic happens. – Brene Brown
Don’t give up on God or people or life either. Every struggle is an opportunity to be delivered; saved from something that could have become harmful. Like a baby coming out of the womb, a place that was perfect for a time but not for all time. The pressure, pain, discomfort and hard work are temporary and a whole new way of living is on the other side.
Seasons change, and like what happened in our home on that Sunday, great upheavals are simply part of a process that can allow us to get to a place of longed-for peace, room to grow and finer living. A child may suddenly get his or her own room or a table gets positioned so that more people can eat together or some new photographs, art or words get hung on the walls so that we remember what is important and are inspired. There is a stillness that comes when the tempest has run its course. Trembling clouds, bursting drops, angry thunder claps and vicious bolts of lightning give way to freshly-washed earth, birdsong, glassy lakes and glistening sky. A sweet reward enjoyed all the more because of what we went through to get here.
I bet we can all think of something that is undone, the loose ends all tangled and knotted to create a tripping hazard. Maybe all you need to do is put on some energising music and tidy your desk, painful as the process is. Did you start writing a song, but now it’s rolled up, unfinished, on a piece of paper in a drawer and nobody has ever heard it sung? Maybe you have behaved badly and you have set out to make amends but it has opened a can of worms that you would rather put the lid on. Perhaps you have started creating something but now you aren’t sure where you were even going with it and so you have turned your back on it and closed the door. You might be studying or travelling or trying to settle somewhere new and although your intentions were honourable and true and well thought through, you are wondering if you took a wrong turn. Dear friends, unless you started something dreadfully wrong or unnecessary, (and if you did, by all means stop) finish the task you began. Keep running till you cross that line. Remember that the ending is going to be a far cry from this dreadful mess in the middle. Just keep doing the next thing and then the next. There’s sure to be a rainbow after this storm.
Psalm 107 v 23 – 30: “Some went out on the sea in ships; they were merchants on the mighty waters. They saw the works of the Lord, His wonderful deeds in the deep. For He spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves. They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away. They reeled and staggered like drunkards; they were at their wits’ end. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm, and He guided them to their desired haven.”
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