Still Sweeping it Under the Rug...

 Happy New Year Chumps!  I am sorry it's been a while since I posted, but my e-blogger site wasn't allowing me to upload any pics and I wouldn't put you through the torture of reading my long, drawn- out thoughts without any visuals!

For those of you that might think I 'over-inflate' or exaggerate the truth from time to time, I wanted to show you proof from my last post, that my kitchen flooring was indeed reminiscent of a jigsaw puzzle since putting our hallway/kitchen pantry back together last year. Some of you know I've been holding my breath in anticipation of Ken giving me the green light to go ahead and replace it with a darker cork, bamboo or some kind of natural, organic wood, sans grout lines! ("My tears are more than just my kitchen flooring)-D.C."! :

Can we all agree that in a perfect world this look is unacceptable? 

Well, as irony would have it, or God's Holy Spirit often works, I am finding myself once again at a spiritual crossroads and realizing that this is soooo NOT a perfect world and in the grand scheme of things, aren't I just so fortunate and blessed to have a kitchen floor? 

 I was reading one of my fav. author (Jen Hatmaker's) blog last night before bed and she shared pictures of her trip to Haiti where little 9 year old girls were mopping DIRT to pass the day away. That's all they had to sweep up-dirt!. No kitchen. No flooring.  No rugs to cover the imperfections in their world. She was mopping DIRT. 

Here's my attempt at sweeping my dirt (and other imperfections) under the rug.

http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2012/10/09/mopping-haiti

Swiped this pic. from her blog entitled "Mopping Haiti". Sorry, I don't think the above link works, but please somehow, some way, read what this amazing sister in Christ is doing to better our world. She is also the same author that wrote the book, "7-An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess".  Do NOT read if you don't want to be convicted or challenged in your faith, life, closet, spending, etc!  I repeat...Do NOT read if you are comfortable with the status quo and want to stay that way. Ugh and double ugh. And I mean that in the nicest way. It's an amazing book and one that I am still trying to make sense of almost a year later. 

And yet, I still get caught dreaming and scheming of a new Pottery Barn kitchen island to go on top of my brand new flooring.

While there are 9 year old little girls in Haiti (and Zeeland) without parents, proper health care, nutrition or hope. 

Chumps! Help!  It's sometimes hard to do my job-or live the comfortable life that I want! :)

I intended to blog about all the cool lights I saw at Lowe's on Saturday morning like this one:

Wouldn't that look great over my new island?

Or this one for you?

or this over a dining table?

or some pendant lights?

But today, all I can think about is the pit in my stomach I had last night when I saw this on Jen's blog:

Tent city in Haiti. 

Precious little girl with a mop.  

My heart hurts a little at the start of this new year. I'm conflicted. I'm confused. I'm convicted.  

Last week, I sat down and wrote out some lofty goals for 2013. Most were how I could improve or better myself.  Few were related to how I could better the world. 

Her picture and post made me a little less determined to fix my flooring and a little more determined to fix what's broken in this life. 

There are people 'mopping dirt' all around me.  I don't need to fly to Haiti to find them.

They live next door, around the corner, down the street.  I know them. I do life with them.  Some I have yet to meet. Some of them are me. 

Mopping dirt. Seems like a futile endeavor:

Jen Hatmaker says it best in that same blog post referencing her seeing the little girl with the mop:

 "And something in my heart went…snap. I want to take the makeshift mop out of her tiny hands and break it into one million pieces. I want to scream and pull every hair out of my head. I want her to not be mopping the dirt outside of her filthy tent where she has lived for nearly two years. I want her not to be here in this terrifying place while my five babes are being tucked neatly into their safe, warm beds with their bellies full and our life the picture of security. I want her to stop mopping that damn dirt, because it is so futile and unfair and broken and everything, everything about this is wrong.

I am on the verge of rupturing, when she looks at me...and smiles. And the little ones behind her, they smile too.

And she keeps mopping the dirt, humming, grinning.

Because her life is hard, but she is going to make it more beautiful. She is. Her presence here alone, with her eyes shining and determined resiliency, is an oasis. We lock eyes and I think, “You’re going to make it, dear one.”

There is hope here. I can’t explain it, but it’s here, I can feel it, I can even see it. It’s literally everywhere. It’s a mopping dirt kind of hope – frustrating, decisive, complicated, dogged, wearisome, inspiring".
-Jen Hatmaker

That's what I will hoping and praying for in 2013 for me, for you, for all us. That "mopping dirt kind of hope".  Making something beautiful in the middle of hardship. 

I gotta be honest. I still want a new kitchen floor, but much more than that, I want a heart that breaks for the things that break God's. I'm going to try to look around and find the beautiful ones that are mopping dirt in their own lives and love them. I love you Chumps and can't wait to journey through another year of 'Changes' with you!!  xoxo 

Christy