Life is so messy. It just is. The older I get the more I realize I don’t have it all together. And neither does anyone else. For many of us, we are just trying to do our best to navigate this world we live in while trying to shine His light in a lost, confused and messy world.

Today while I was out running (yes, be impressed, I am conquering the couch to 5K app as we speak), I was imagining what I looked like to the poor souls who caught a glimpse of me & my red hot face. I literally cannot run longer than a minute without my face turning 50 shades of crimson. The poor groundskeepers at the church, the garbage men and some sweet frail old man out for a walk with his dog, whose pace almost matched mine, but I digress. All subject to it. This hot mess that I am.

And then I felt God whisper to me, “Yes, you’re my messy masterpiece.” And the thought made me smile. Because while I am a mess, I am His mess. It doesn’t so much matter what I am. Wife, mother, friend, pastor’s wife, wanna be runner…the list goes on and on. But that list doesn’t matter. What does matter is whose I am. 

I am His.

I am His when I am cooking a nutritious meal for my family.

I am His when I slap the Wendy’s take out bags on the table for dinner. (Thrifty too because after 4:00 p.m. kids’ meals are $2.00 with a free Frosty!!!)

I am His when I am comparing myself to others.

I am His when I have a healthy confidence.

I am His when I am loving others unconditionally.

I am His when I am harboring resentment and bitterness.

I am still His. I am a work in progress. I am His messy masterpiece.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we just do what we want and throw the excuse of “Well, I’m a just a hot mess, I can’t help it” over everything and take no personal responsibility. We need to spend time in God’s word and to put into practice loving others. But in the day to day rhythms of life, while we are doing that, it’s easy for us to get lost in the mess and feel like we’ve failed. Like somehow we aren’t enough.

And today I’d like to remind that you aren’t. You are NOT enough.

Encouraging, right? Well, don’t leave me now. I have two more words for you that change everything.

He is.

He is enough. And when we identify ourselves with Him, when we give Him access to our lives, we become his messy masterpiece and in Him we are enough. We are not enough without Him, we are more than enough with Him.

When he looks at us, he sees a masterpiece, because we are His. It’s why I can look at this:

and tell you it’s my favorite “Starry Night” work of art of all time! Because of whose it is, my daughter Hannah. I love her, she is mine and when I look her I see a beautiful masterpiece.

So today be encouraged, because even if you feel like a “hot mess,” God is looking at you and He sees a beautiful “hot mess of a masterpiece.” And He’s thinking, “I love you, you are mine, and when I look at you, I see a masterpiece.”