There were whistles in the treat bag our four-year-old brought home from a holiday party. Whistles. Plural. The plastic kind with a slide; the type of whistle that makes every dog in our neighborhood howl and every mother wonder why toy companies dislike us so much.
If I’d been faster, I would’ve looked through the bag and tossed the noisy gifts into the trash, but I missed them. I missed all five of them and now my ears were ringing to the delightful sounds of my husband and preschooler making … joyful noise.
Well, it was joyful for two of us.
Those whistles were the last in a long line of reminders that our home is noisy. Boy moms don’t get to have all the fun—oh, no. We have our own variety of loud noises, interesting smells, and creative bathroom songs. And, although our home has its own gongs and clangs and chaotic moments, it has love.
In our home, love doesn’t look like you might expect, or at least not the version you think you would see on Pinterest. There aren’t fireworks or grand displays; there aren’t brightly wrapped gifts or decorations hanging from the walls. None of the signs of love that the movies, commercials, or greeting card aisles display exist in our home — not on Valentine’s Day or any other day of the year.
When my husband and I were first married, we thought that’s what we needed to prove our love to one another, to keep the feelings alive. As time has passed and God has changed our lives, He’s also transformed our hearts to understand that love isn’t a perfectly maintained feeling, a special look into someone’s eyes, or just the right gift. Sometimes love appears in the everyday, ordinary chaos and noise.
The fancy showcase of love I thought I needed and deserved, the fuzzy feelings and happy sighs. They’ve been replaced by real life.
The Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day cards are made of construction paper and enough glitter to light up a small city. Dust bunnies replace decorations and remembering to be kind to one another is the gift we give.
Unlike the “once upon a time” stories we read, in our home, love isn’t a feeling. It’s in the “doing.” It’s reading the same book fifty times because it means extra cuddles with a wiggly toddler. It’s being okay with the crumbs and dust and who-knows-what because it means more time playing made-up games and encouraging creativity. It’s letting go of control and allowing our girl to help crack eggs to make breakfast. Or feed the cats. Or help vacuum the floor after those first two tasks have left trails across the house.
Love in our home looks a lot like a noisy mess. But I’ve come to love that the piles of stickers, markers, books, toys, games, and stuffed animals are signs that we’re an active, involved family.
Look around your home and see beyond the mess and the noise. What gifts of gratitude can you pull from the piles?
• The snow boots, pants, gloves, arm warmers, hats, mittens, and jackets left in front of the garage door are reminders of the giggles from our daughter as her daddy built her a snow slide.
• The bathtub full of toys—some that probably don’t belong in the water—bring moments of beautiful (and soggy) creativity from the mind of a child.
• The sticky spots on the table are reminders that we’re blessed to have enough food to eat and the ability to sit at the table together and say grace—to thank God for His love and provision as a family, and listen to our girl’s little voice sing, “God our Father.”
It’s in the messy moments of our every day that I’m so grateful to be loved by a God who doesn’t expect me to be perfectly organized and beautiful on the inside before He works on my heart. It’s in the acts of transformation and refinement, forgiveness, and grace, that I experience God’s love in my life—more “doing.” He gives, provides, heals, comforts, corrects, saves—and never runs out of love to do it again the next morning, regardless of how little sleep we all had the night before.
And He does it again the next day, and the next, and your messy life will never change God’s character or how He loves us. Love no longer comes packaged in jewelry and fancy dinners in our home. But when the noise and chaos and mess are combined with love, it’s a gift that’s so much more valuable. As Paul told the church in Corinth, “If I speak human or angelic languages but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).
Dear God, help us to see past the messes and into the blessings today. May we have love in all things, in all ways, for all those You bring into our lives in the ordinary, the noisy, and the imperfect. Father, help us not to be noise, but to be love. Amen.
Crystal Stine is passionate about embracing the beautiful, messy, unfinished parts of life. Author of Creative Basics, speaker, host of Write 31 Days, and the editorial and marketing manager at (in)courage, Crystal offers encouragement at crystalstine.me and on Twitter and Instagram as @crystalstine. Crystal lives in Pennsylvania with her family.
This article originally appeared in HomeLife Magazine.
