{"id":235,"date":"2009-08-21T15:36:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-21T15:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/mess.html"},"modified":"2009-08-21T15:36:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-21T15:36:00","slug":"mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/mess.html","title":{"rendered":"Mess"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family: arial, -webkit-fantasy\">It&#8217;s tempting to let it go. But every day, usually three times every day, we clean up the mess. Dishes in the dishwasher. Toys in the basket. Food back in the frig. Dirty clothes in the laundry. I sometimes can&#8217;t believe that we will be back at the same place&#8211;sticky peach on my foot, diaper in the trash can, ketchup-stained clothes in the basket, blocks on the floor&#8211;in just a few hours. But even though it will come back, we clean it up. And a sense of order and peace descends. It gives a rhythm to our days. It tells us that chaos is not going to win.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family:arial, -webkit-fantasy\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family:arial, -webkit-fantasy\">In the more abstract areas of my life, it is even more tempting to let the mess go. To lie on the couch instead of going for a run. To sleep longer instead of spending some time reading the Bible and praying in the morning. To have that extra glass of wine at the end of a long day instead of dealing with the reasons why I feel exhausted\/discouraged\/ready to tune out. It&#8217;s tempting to let it go. But, every day, and day after day after day, I&#8217;m going to try to clean up the mess. <\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s tempting to let it go. But every day, usually three times every day, we clean up the mess. Dishes in the dishwasher. Toys in the basket. Food back in the frig. Dirty clothes in the laundry. I sometimes can&#8217;t believe that we will be back at the same place&#8211;sticky peach on my foot, diaper&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mess - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/mess.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mess - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s tempting to let it go. But every day, usually three times every day, we clean up the mess. Dishes in the dishwasher. Toys in the basket. Food back in the frig. Dirty clothes in the laundry. I sometimes can&#8217;t believe that we will be back at the same place&#8211;sticky peach on my foot, diaper&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/mess.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-08-21T15:36:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mess - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/mess.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mess - Thin Places","og_description":"It&#8217;s tempting to let it go. But every day, usually three times every day, we clean up the mess. Dishes in the dishwasher. Toys in the basket. Food back in the frig. Dirty clothes in the laundry. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}