Me, looking the hot mess I am
I started a new job recently and there's nothing like a new job to tear away the facade and show just how clumsy and forgetful and absent minded I can really be. Just in the first week at my new job, I was 30 minutes late because of a sick child and on the second day the child that had been sick showed up to her childcare (which is also where I work) with her face looking completely torn up. She had thrown a fit in the parking lot over me apparently bringing the wrong backpack. As I was attempting to tame the tantrum, I spilled my coffee and dropped just about everything I own on the ground, all with a very large one-year-old in my arm. That's when my three-year-old decided to tear herself free of my grip on her hand and landed face first on the sidewalk.
Lately, every day at some point I have these moments. Every. Single. Day. It feels as if I am just constantly cleaning messes, and not just the ones my kids make. I make plenty of my own messes, with locking my keys in my car... twice in one day, forgetting to pay bills, and losing my temper with my husband. And it seems like it's all out of my control. Sure, I could pay more attention, I could be less forgetful, but how in the heck do I do that? How do I change myself when this is all I can ever remember being (not that my memory is all that great, obviously)?
Some of my readers may remember the meaning behind my blog's name, A Mom in Deep Waters. In my experience, water has always been a symbol of something wild and totally out of human control. It is something always present and vital to life, yet it is something so powerful and sometimes deadly. This is not only true of the use of water as a symbol in the Bible, but also in literature, poetry, and even contemporary song lyrics. (See an expanded version of this theory in a previous post, here.)
I am feeling surrounded by my blunders, like I'm lost out at sea, just waiting for the waters to swallow me up, to drown in my own mistakes.
But for all the messes there is one Messiah.
The Holy Spirit has opened my eyes to another piece of the ancient metaphor I obsess over. The things of this world, our sins and our silly slip-ups, are like water surrounding us, rain ever pouring down, threatening to drown us. Jesus showed us, however, He has all control over the water.
So many of Jesus' miracles were centered around water. At a wedding celebration, He turned water into wine.
Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” --John 2:7-10 (ESV)
Jesus takes these waters, these sins and hardships, and makes them something completely new. He uses these times to surprise us, to delight us. So many times, I have looked back at the stupid things I've done and been so grateful they happened because so much good came of them. Often times, we don't even see that it is Jesus working. The people at the wedding had no idea that their wine used to be water or who had made the exquisite vino. When I can't change myself or my circumstances, I can trust that Jesus can and is most likely already working on the transformation.
Jesus also calmed waves and rain in a storm.
And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” --Mark 4:38-41
Jesus is a sovereign king who removes sin. He has complete control over the water and does stop it from consuming us. I cry out to a Savior with perfect hearing. I pray to my God and I am heard and made righteous, though I continue to sin.
Jesus even walked on water.
And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” --Matthew 14: 25-27
Jesus walked on the water, out to his followers. He didn't ask them to come to shore to pick Him up. He doesn't ask me to constantly be returning to him when I should. He seeks me out, calls to me with the Holy Spirit. The Father has adopted me into the flock and Jesus is the Shepherd who came to Earth, to the mess and the muck, out to the raging sea, all to pull me out of it at His own expense. Jesus' death on the cross was His hand pulling me above the water to walk with Him as a co-heir of Heaven. Like a drowning child, I fight Him, flail as He tugs me from the water. But now I am safe in His grasp.
This is the "thrill of hope" referred to in O Holy Night. As that holy night approaches, Jesus is reminding me that He, the baby we think about so much at this time of year, became a man, fully man and fully God, the greatest man who ever lived, as I tell my three-year-old. He is the only man and leader with the ability to bend water to His will and to form my life like a beautiful sculpture to bring the Artist glory. Praise be to Him. Happy birthday, my sweet Jesus.
