My Cup Overflows (Psalm 23)

Caution: Watch your step for toys

            This is an embarrassingly candid story shared for young mothers who feel like failures. They are learning that being a supermom is unattainable. In other words, they can’t change a million diapers a day, wipe up endless food spills, wash mega-loads of laundry, happily survive on meager precious minutes of sleep each night, and re-gather the same toys endless times a week. Or, maybe even work outside the home and do it all. AND expect a tidy home.

I raised two normal children, and my daughter now has children of her own. Mine were energetic, created messes, and surprise, for some reason needed food at least three times a day. We were associate pastors at a church, and lived in their 50+ year-old parsonage next door. It was a normal, stay-at-home day. One day ran into the next. I hadn’t straightened the house nor had I dusted in way too long.

Our messy living room had the regular array of strewn toys. The shared family bathroom was its usual undesirable self. It never looked good, mainly because it was tiny with centuries-old, wall-to-wall, yucky shag carpeting. If two people were in the bathroom, there was barely space to turn around.

A knock at the front door caught my attention. Empty-nester, 50-year-old Pastor Richardson, with his always meticulously plastered-into-place [evangelist] hairstyle and perfectly pressed and starched attire said, “Hi, Diane. I hope you don’t mind, but Homer and I have come to check out the master bathroom.”

Don't misunderstand me. I respected our pastor/boss. But at that moment, compared to his polished appearance, I felt small and very scuzzy. As my jaw and my pride dropped to the floor and were sucked into the dank and creepy crawlspace below, my inside-out feelings were many and varied: Mind? Of course I mind. Just 30 or even 15 minutes of heads-up would have provided time to at least create a path to the bathroom, clean the toilet, and put on make-up (young mothers master the art of fast multi-tasking).

As they entered, I zipped my mouth and probably turned 10 shades of red. Why didn’t they give me fair warning they were coming? They had to walk through our strewn living room and the master bedroom to reach the bathroom, plus they were able to see my son’s cyclone bedroom from what was our shared bathroom. And, to top off the embarrassment, they pried up the gross carpet and discovered bad things growing underneath. This is a crude illustration, but it felt like I was at a social function apologizing for keeping my hand stuck down my pants. The bathroom was downright unhealthy.
            What did the pastor tell his wife? And, most importantly, did I expose my poor children to dangerous germs? That event is permanently stored into long-term memory, now filed under tolerance, and can never be bleached out. Along with other untidy memories. Like the youthful guest who mischievously scrawled "Thank You" into our son's meta-dusty dresser mirror, equivalent to a dirty car's "Wash Me" (you know who you are TF).
            We all survived through dustiness and even germs. All that to say seasons come and seasons go. This, too, shall pass, young moms. Enjoy the journey. And: "Don't sweat the petty stuff and don't pet the sweaty stuff," because children do put their hands down their pants.

OC-ers (guilty, in spurts) and OCD-ers:  Embrace Psalm 23