being just where I am at

Yesterday I flipped on a burner to melt down some almond bark sitting in a pan so that I could get it out of the pan and throw it away. I went to another part of the house and forgot about it until the schoolkids came home and asked what was on the stove. Horrified to see it all blackened to the bottom and sides of the pan and beginning to smoke, I took it outside, threw it out, and began what will likely be a month-long cleaning process to return the pan to it's original condition. Were it not one of my favorites, I might have thrown it away all together. Instead, it's a process of soaking and cleaning, using up all the baking soda and vinegar and copper scour pads in my cupboard and boiling and soaking and cleaning some more, making progress little by little.

The cleaning process impacted the stovetop in the meantime, so I started scrubbing at that this morning and slowly as the morning progressed I moved into the nooks and crannies of the kitchen until surfaces were clean, some cracks were clean too, and the appliances were shiny. Unfortunately the microwave cleaning resulted in a broken glass turntable plate, which again forced a little extra time and attention. But after slowing and scrubbing everything well, the kitchen smells like Mrs. Meyers lemon verbena, and I stepped back to realize I will enjoy spending time in this room again this week.

I'm not sure if the kitchen would have gotten as clean as it did if everything had gone efficiently. As it was, everything I did turned into a bigger job than I had anticipated. Sometimes that's really frustrating, but on this windy Wednesday morning with laundry and housecleaning as the only things on my agenda, the hiccups in the process proved a gift to force me to slow down, focus, and do each thing well. After all, the efficiency of the process had been lost early on... and this is the task on my hands for today.

Brokenness is so inefficient. It takes more time and it appears to limit progress and growth.

But brokenness also forces change and adaptation. It seeks a solution. Problems are opportunities. And although inefficiency necessitates extra effort and puts us on a slower path to growth, we may find that the end result is more thorough and complete than a quick fix would have been.

The longer I stayed in the same place (my kitchen), the more I paid attention to detail. I saw more clearly what needed to be done, where there was food and dirt stuck to things that hadn't been deep-cleaned in too long. I decided to put my full attention what was on front of me, rather than dividing my attention among all the rooms in my house, and I released the need to get it all done today. It freed my hands to do the task in front of me, and it freed my brain to enjoy the task... to be fully present right there, instead of halfway present everywhere.

I have felt in life lately like I'm in a bit of an inefficient and broken spot, and I felt God gently teaching me today that if He has not moved me beyond this spot, then there is more that needs to be done here. More personal growth, more contentment, more attention to what is going on around me right here in this place. I have a lot to learn still about being just where I am at.