Worse before it gets better

Thanks to my sister, I NOW have a wonderfully organized closet. (way too ADD = very few organizational skills; ironically enough I get annoyed when my roomies leave bowls of cereal milk in the sink  but I can handle a pile of clothes on my bedroom chair, to each his own, right??)

Before my sister came over, I made sure that all my clothes were hanging (some had been in a pile, as I said....) and I pulled most of my mismatched shoes out and put them in a basket.  So it already started out on a fairly decent level of messiness/lack thereof...  we weren't started with piles of clothes....we were starting on a fairly solid foundation.

And you know what the first thing she did?? Pull a LOT of my clothes out and put them in piles -- suits, dresses, cocktail attire, sweaters, etc...  Piles of what I needed to get rid of, what I would put back in the closet, what I was taking home to my mom (bc it was her clothing item to begin with), clothes I did not want anymore by my sister wanted....tons of piles.

If you looked at my closet and hallway mid-organize, it was overwhelming, completely stressful.  I was thinking HOW does this look so bad, earlier I had it in a decent, much better condition?  She just made it worse! This will take us 2 whole days to finish!!!

I couldn't see the ending very well...of course all of you very organized people know the ending to this story: sometimes there has to be a bigger mess to get to the beautiful end result.  And that's what happened-- a lot of messiness THEN a lovely organized closet --color coordinated too!!.  Hmmm, sounds a lot like life!

Sometimes we think that we are doing a decent job with our lives.  Things could be worse...sure I gossip, I have mean thoughts, I place a high value on worldly things, I occasionally drink too much or have lustful thoughts, etc etc...but I could be a LOT worse.  and my relationship with God is OK...I go to church, I sometimes go to sunday school, I pray....and few things are going wrong.  Then life falls apart, and its like God takes our decent life -- the one we think we have together -- and makes it even messier for awhile.  He pulls out are fairly clean closet and throws the clothes on the floor.  And we sit there stunned...and overwhelmed, and confused at how His involvement is making things any better, instead things are worse.

Then slowly but surely, the clothes get hung up CORRECTLY.  God starts putting life back together in a more glorious way, but not without making us throw a few piles of junk away first.  Not without a few moments of looking at Him and saying I don't know what to do (which I am pretty sure I said to Marley last night...)

Sometimes Life gets a lot messier before its good again...its just God reorginizing!