inside

 It's a funny thing- having your cupboard doors taken off for all the world to see {gasp!} what's inside. For me it was embarrassing actually. I keep an okay clean house, things are picked up, dishes aren't usually in the sink and such, but I'm definitely not a perfectionist. I hate to dust and we are always having avalanches fall on us when we open the cupboard doors... you know, you take out one tiny super glue bottle and fifty things fall out that were all balanced on that little tube. (Oh you don't know what I mean? Consider yourself organized!!) I really thought I had been working on them, slowly, one-by-one, until the day came to take the doors off. And my problem is this, I clean one cupboard/drawer/closet and move to the next all the while the just cleaned one gets messy. Ah well. So this is the only picture I would put on here for fear of judgement I guess.

And it got me to thinking.

How my cupboard organization might be a little like life. 

(Stay with me here.)

We all get to see the pretty cupboard doors of everyone around us. But we have no idea what's going on inside the cupboard- some people are a mess and don't know how to help it, some are completely organized, some are messy but content- you get the idea. In my 31 years of life I have learned a thing or two about heartache and pain. But I don't seem to talk about it very much. Who wants to hear the bad right? Even as a kid I remember not wanting to write the sad/mad feelings down in my journal because I knew I would read it later. It's the same thing with my blog- I keep it nice and shiny. But sometimes, things go wrong. Things we can't help and we don't know if we'll ever survive. 

And nobody knows because our doors are shut.

I still don't know that I'd blurt out the stuff I've had to go through in this life- my own little personal pity place where I keep that stuff tucked away and try not to think about too much. When I was going through some marriage stuff a while back, it helped me to know that others had had bumps in their marriage and came out okay. Not that I want them to be sad or hurt, but it's such a relief to see that you are not alone in this. 

It's what happens. 

It's life.  

And I couldn't have drawn from their strength if they had never shared it with me. And it made all the difference in my healing. So I feel like I have to say it- I've been there-- thought I would die of a broken heart, thought I would stop breathing because it hurt too much, had nightmares every single night for a long time, felt like I had been knocked down over and over again-- and have come out a different person. My mind has been opened. My life is better. But during that dark time, with my cupboard doors shut and lots of loose batteries, glue and tape strewn about inside, some of my only glimpses of the light outside were praying to my Heavenly Father (and learning firsthand that he answers prayers and comforts me) 

AND 

looking at the light that others had shown me when they opened their cupboard doors, even if just for a minute and no matter how yucky, to show me what was going on inside them. And I am so thankful. (I wonder if they even know?)

It's interesting to look around now and think- nobody is perfect and we all have our messy times. I think we all do the best we can and we are all trying. It reminds me that judging someone is completely unfair. We just have no idea. We don't know what that smile (or ornery look) could be hiding.

I want to look for those things I love about a person. And give them the benefit of being civil even if they have gone, or are going through their own personal hell. 

Throughout our lives, we will continually have to tidy up our cupboards, even if we know they will just get messy again. It's part of the plan, why we're here. How will we choose to react and act? Will we just quit cleaning all of our cupboards just because one of them is messy and become an episode of hoarders? I heard in a class once, if you dropped one of your nice china plates, would you throw the rest away because one was ruined? Nope. I want to keep the plates I have left (my life!) and hold them close. And even though I mostly keep my cupboard doors shut, I will try to be better at opening them when needed. I hope we all will.

After all, it's just stuff. It doesn't define me. 

That's what I've been thinking all week while my cupboards are doorless,
and my life continues to be perfectly imperfect.