Butterflies and messmakers

      I don’t have a big backyard, but last spring we decided to plant a “butterfly bush” because the garden center told us the kids would enjoy watching butterflies come to it.  My neighborhood is rather crowded and nature is squeezed into corners around us.  Butterflies are not swarming in the meadows of wildflowers around me.  Yet, everyday  there are at least 4-5 beautiful butterflies sipping the sweet nectar from this plant in the corner of my small backyard  and my children do watch them in wonder.  Everyday, it amazes me to see them thrive as if they were in a meadow of wild flowers.  They glory in what God has provided them.  That is what they were made to do.  This morning, they have taught me a great lesson in contentment.  Often times, I can focus on what I don’t have or what I think could be better in life.  I can look at the “bigger backyards” of those around me and get distracted by them, rather than reveling and thriving with what God has given me. 

      I was talking with my 9 year old at the end of a long day this week and slumped down on my couch surveying the damage of the day with toys, socks, shoes and half-eaten snacks strewn about everywhere after my younger two had gone to bed.  I sighed in my exhaustion, trying to muster the energy to begin to put the house back together again.  In a simple and quiet voice, Emma asked “but aren’t you glad you have us as the cause of your messes?”  I smiled and chuckled softly, putting into perspective how grateful I am for these little messmakers.   I told her I’d take a thousand times the mess that night to have the children that I have.  I may not have the space to organize the way I’d like, but my boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places.  All of us in life have things we wish were different or wish we had more of and goodness knows, America feeds us daily that we need the next and bigger new thing and that what we do and have is never enough.  1 Peter 1:3-4 ("His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. ⁴ Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires") assures me that I’ve been given everything I need in this life, which I am grateful for the reminders, that God is good enough.