Hiding The Containers

                             
Years ago I was managing my own business and had been hired to create a beautiful luncheon for a client and her friends.

She ordered all of the food and wanted me to set up and style the table and create the flower arrangements and so on.

"Get rid of these containers. All of them. I don't want to see any containers lying around anywhere!"

She was serious.

While I was trying to create and style- she was busy scurrying around plating the chicken salad and asked me to dispose of any and all containers.

I assumed she meant this- let's get rid of the garbage before the guests arrive.

Later on, during the meal, what she actually meant took on new form...

It went down something like this....


Guests: Did you make this chicken salad?


Hostess: Yes...


Guests: Oh my gosh this is amazing!

Hostess: Thank you!

Guests: Did you make everything?

Hostess: Oh yes...

On and on it continued throughout the luncheon....

The raving. The complimenting. The fanfare.

And it wasn't long before I realized....We never took the garbage out after all.

Maybe we hid all the containers. Maybe there wasn't any evidence lying around-

But the garbage?  It was front and center stage.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Why do we as women feel the need to try and be so fabulous all of the time?

Why do we feel the need to try and impress others to the point that our hearts are so heavy and our spirits are so weighty that we couldn't take our own spiritual garbage out if we tried?

And so we settle for a life of simply hiding the containers.


We hide the containers in the school fundraiser. In meetings at the office. We hide them in our marriage.  In our parenting. We hide them at our children's birthday parties. We hide them
in the name of just trying to be a good Mom, wife, sister, daughter and friend.


I don't think this is what the Father meant when he spoke about the abundant life.

Because if we are hosting and entertaining and inviting friends over just to impress-

If we are taking intellectual property and creative property and trying to slap our name on it-

All in the name of trying to be fabulous and win every ones approval....

Then we'd better get more than a Hefty Cinch Sack.

We need Him.

Because life with Him will require us to face it all and offer it up to the One who knows how to pull that drawstring best...

Life with Him will eventually require us to say....

This is me.


The good . The bad. And the- I wish I was really this fabulous.


He can take every sense of unworthiness, every insecurity, every unmet need and every gaping wound and tie it all up and dispose of it properly.


And in exchange He will offer us a life of freedom and security and the confidence to leave the empty containers out on the kitchen counter and give credit where credit is due. 


He will offer us a life where we can be true.


Where we can have the courage to be exactly who He has called us to be.


The courage to open our hearts and say to one another- this is me.


He will offer us the opportunities to extend hospitality - just to be a blessing to someone.


Without any hidden agendas or motives and without any need to try and impress. 

In doing that...

In offering up the life we've tried to make for ourselves...

This hiding of the containers life.

We can discover a life that is better than we imagined.

We have to be willing to lose our life to find it... Matthew 10:39

We can discover that we were wonderful all along.

We really are creative.

We really are fearfully and wonderfully made.

We really do have a genius deep inside waiting to be discovered.

One who is brilliant and beautiful and was just hidden underneath mountains
of empty containers labeled I wish I was enough.


We are, you know.


In all of our mistakes. 


In all of our shortcomings. 


In all of our past and present poor decision making.


In all of our undecorated homes and stained furnishings and cars that need to be detailed.


In all of our take out meals and missed appointments and deadlines.


In all of our piles of laundry. The clean. The dirty. The lost and the found.


Even in the midst of all of this....


We are beautiful vessels filled with opportunity and purpose and possibility.
We are overflowing with ideas and creativity. We are radiant with glory, destiny and details that
He has written on our hearts and in our spirits. We are expectant with dreams and desires and 
the hope that is our future.


Here's to a weekend of discovering it all through Him sweet friends....