Life Can (and usually will) Be Messy

Sunday morning I was standing in Church singing, when the little boy in the row ahead of me kicked over his Styrofoam water cup.

Water, tile floor. No big deal.

However, my 17 year old daughter, with a "help people in distress" streak as big as the sky, darted down the row to help the young mother by cleaning it up. On her way, she inadvertently kicked an extra extra extra large coffee latte which dumped its sticky contents all over the floor and adjacent rug.

We've all been there. Trying to help but making things so much worse than they were before we tried to help.

I told her later how proud I was of her, that just because things turned  out embarrassing did not mean that the quality that propelled her into action was any less gracious and kind. Life can get messy, and the only way to avoid that messiness is to stay uninvolved. Some use a situation such as above to say to themselves, "I always mess up when I try to help, its better not to help at all". That is an unfortunate choice because it removes that persons giftedness and contribution from the rest of the world.

Learn from your mistakes when you can, but stay engaged, stay involved and remind yourself that if you're doing it right, at times it will be messy.