Buried but not Bothered

It's Homecoming Week around here which generally means one thing for me - I'm completely buried in projects, tasks, and requests. My voicemail light has not stopped blinking despite my many glances of disdain in its direction. I have a huge list of people I have to call already. I don't want to know what's still on the machine. My email inbox currently contains 229 items and is steadily increasing by the minute. I have salad dressing spilled on a pile of parade applications, coffee dripped on a pile of position descriptions. I have piled piles of things on top of other piles of things. There's a poster on my floor that my desk chair continually rolls over each time I have to get up. I am awaiting essential responses from people that without, I can not move forward on a project that is due at 9:30 pm tonight. And that's just the Homecoming work! I have proposals, course preparations, quizzes and papers, student employment, organizational constitutions, a giant mess of a budget, a book club reading assignment...And that's just work! Then there's that church committee that has fallen behind that I volunteered to lead, my poor neglected house plants, that book I started a few weeks ago... 

Do you know what really astounds me about all of this? I am not bothered by that daunting list in the least. It doesn't even shake me. Is it a lot to do? Certainly! Is it too much to do? More than likely! Will I work hard to complete all of it anyway? Absolutely! 

This gets me thinking, first, What kind of crazed maniac am I? I mean, really. Who puts themselves through this sort of jumbled mess of a life? Who would want to? And who could actually remain calm about all such things? 

But then I think, Me. And the response comes with not a tone of contention but an attitude of joy. How is that possible, you may ask. Certainly, I have no earthly idea. But it's absolutely true. My life doesn't feel like a struggle; it feels like a party! My life is not chaotic or messy; it's well lived in. Well lived in. I like the sound of that. It's a phrase that comes to mind when we walk into a family's home where there are toys all over the floor, dishes in the sink, flour on the counter...to some it may look like a disaster, but to that family, those things might just represent one of the best days ever. All of the mess surrounding me are like crazy good memories or reminders of things that have happened, are happening, or will happen. It's not daunting, it's exciting. Energizing even. 

The only explanation I can even think of to explain any of this is that I have a wonderful and mighty Creator. He wired to me love this, to take joy in it. When I'm living as He created me to be, I won't be tired (okay maybe, but in that great, I-just-got-home-from-vacation-tired way), I won't be worried, I won't be shaken. 

Over the last week or so, I have explored two scriptures that are really sticking to my ribs right now: Matthew 28:14-30 and Proverbs 31. In the first, we are reminded that we have responsibilities based on our God-given abilities that we should desire to use in the best ways we can. It makes our Master happy. In the second, we are shown an example of a woman using her God-given gifts and abilities to her very best, and she is called noble. I am this woman. I am the servant given much. I desire to serve God to the very best of my ability in the very ways He has designed for me. It may give my life that well-lived-in look, but I wouldn't have it any other way.