A mess.

I'm looking around my bedroom. To anyone else this place just looks like a mess.

There are books on every flat surface, piled up in unruly towers: library books, scriptures, project books, and more library books. An entire corner has been taken over by baby pictures of Dorothy that she and her sister tore out from the baby book, one-by-one. There are notepads and random piles of papers covered with notes: recipes, health and beauty tips, errands to run, etc. There are craft projects that I have started but not gotten back to and supplies for craft projects I completed but from which I haven't quite finish cleaning up. Let me not forget that constant basket of laundry--sometimes clean sometimes dirty. Yes, I suppose it is a mess.

However, I love it.

I love it because they are all reminders of life--OUR life. And I wouldn't have it any other way. (Yes, even that laundry basket)

I love looking around and knowing that I read books with my girls today, that they enjoy looking back at family memories, that I am ever thinking, learning, and growing, and that every day, with my little ones, I get the chance to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.

Yes. This mess can stay. Because I think this house would feel a little less like home without it.