Dealing with a Mess

19. Jul, 2010 0 Comments

My children’s rooms have been known to look like the wreckage left from a bomb blast. Clothes, toys, and technology lay strewn across the floor leaving little space to walk or sit. Saturday is the day to find the floor in their rooms. No kid enjoys that task. It’s always more fun to make a mess than to clean it up.

I don’t care for cleaning up messes either. My typical strategy is mess avoidance.I look for anything else to do to avoid cleaning up the mess I’ve made. Even as I write this there is a pile of tools, paint brushes, and remodeling left-overs piled in my closet from my last room remodel. Whether the mess is at home, in the car or at the office, few of us really enjoy cleaning up messes. This is especially true for relationship messes.

A mess stays a mess when it is ignored. My children would be fine with tip-toeing around their piles if they weren’t required to deal with it. What child wouldn’t? Many people have this same tendency with relational messes. Pride says, “Ignore it, and it will go away.” Self-righteousness adds, “Pretend it isn’t there, and it will disappear.” But it doesn’t disappear.

Relationship mess-ups are best cleaned up before they require tip-toeing around. When little messes are dealt with along the way, there is a lot less clutter.

Restoration is never easy. Ask my son. He gets overwhelmed when he realizes the effort it will take to restore the room to order. Through teary eyes and with great humility, I often hear my son ask, “Will you help me?” That may be one of the best questions anyone can ask when facing an overwhelming relationship mess.

Dealing with relational messes requires a healthy dose of humility. This attitude helps us see the mess from another person’s perspective and accept responsibility. Sure the mess is not always my doing. But when I am the one responsible I need to make the effort to restore the relationship.

Messes can disappear when there is a genuine effort to restore. Making an effort doesn’t include justifying or trying to persuade. That’s called making excuses. Making an effort includes listening and asking forgiveness. Where there is a willingness to ask for forgiveness, there is a genuine desire to restore.

It takes more than just a conversation to clean up a mess. It takes humility, listening ears and asking forgiveness.

It took many years for me to get that it isn’t necessary to continue tip-toeing around messes like my kids do in their bedrooms. And It isn’t worth letting the mess pile up. The best approach is to dive in with both feet and get rid of the mess. Ask for help, and work through it with humility. Little-by-little relationships will be restored, and the mess will disappear.

——————————————————————

As I close out this post, I can’t help but think of those who wake up everyday to a messy relationship(s) they did not create. I understand that in some cases diving in with both feet won’t make any lasting change to the mess. In those challenging situations the only thing I know to do is to pray. Pray that God will heal and that He will help you deal with the mess when it gets difficult. It is only through His strength that the courage exists to face the frequent disappointments. ”Casting all your care on Him, for He cares for you” 1 Peter 5:7