The Crumbs of Holiness

A couple of days ago, I had a bit of a temper tantrum over the ever-present crumbs that continue to find their home in our house. Some like to live on our kitchen floor. Some would rather stay on the countertops. And some like the view of our dining area from underneath the table.

As much as I try to escort them out of our house with a ride in the vacuum, their friends seem to take their places immediately.

It is a battle that is never ending. And one that triggers things within me that are not pleasant.

Now, I don’t have to look very far to see who the usual culprits are. Watching my two young boys eat their snacks and meals is like watching a crop duster fly over a farm. Between not being able to sit still, learning to chew with their mouths shut (honestly, can a boy really make that much noise simply by chewing food), and leaning back in their chairs because they can’t reach the table to eat over their plates, they collect half of the food on their shirts. In contrast, the rest gets eaten and deposited onto the floor. Now, they are getting better with bringing their plates over to the sink when they are excused from the table, but with that comes a trail of food from the dinner table through the kitchen. I guess their thinking is that if my wife Amy and I get lost and need help finding our way to the kitchen sink, there is a trail of food that can help us get there safely.

On top of battling the crumbs on the floor as a daily activity, my younger one is a complete hoarder of every little stick and rock there is in the village of Worb. Amy and I find them in kitchen drawers, behind the TV, in his bed, in our bathroom cabinets, and of course, on the floor.

So the other morning, I snapped when I tripped over the truck in the kitchen as I reached over 2 rocks and twigs for the paper towels to clean up the dinner from the night before that was still living on our floor.

The crumbs had won. They touched off some things within me that needed to be dealt with.

Being a stay-at-home dad has been a beautiful experience. Yet, an experience that is not without its moments of insecurity.

The insecurity that rises when I think I am not “successful” because, for the first time, I am not “working.” (I put “working” in quotations because I didn’t know what working meant before staying home full time) Insecurity comes when people look at me with a puzzled look on their faces when I say that it was my wife’s job that brought us here. Which usually is followed up with, “Then what do you do all day?”

For a man growing up in an American culture that equates the amount of time you spend in the office and the money you make, with the number of character traits that you exhibit, spending your days cleaning up floors, bathrooms, grocery shopping, and doing laundry without seeing direct results is a shot to your sense of self.

In the past, I would often have these same feelings of insecurity when I was doing ministry work between the constant feelings of not making a difference to others because it was barely visible. To the feelings I would get when others would react to the work I was doing as “nice” and maybe even “cute” but not a real job because it didn’t provide for my family. Or others would certainly let me know that talking about God’s love is simpleminded and childish compared to the “important and real” work in the secular culture.

I guess we all have things that trigger our feelings of not being “good” enough. And for me, it is usually my insecurities that spark within me a need through my actions or words to try to prove my worth or to find comfort in my inadequate feelings that I feel.

Or in the case of the other morning it just all comes out in anger.

The floor’s messiness is just an indication of the messiness that I feel at times within my soul. The times that, for whatever reason, spark my inability to be pleased with myself. Yet is especially during these times that I have two places that I go for comfort and truth.

For God will always comfort my feelings of inadequacy. And my wife Amy seems to be God’s visible presence here on earth. For both make me feel at peace within my wounds, sins, and insecurities. God’s light shines a light into my soul, exposing the shadows that lie within…and He still wants to hang there for me to be His friend. My relationship with Amy exposes my selfishness and shortcomings, and she still comes in and smiles at me and hugs me as she walks over sticks, crumbs, and rocks.

So this morning, because of these two relationships, I woke up with the ability to smile at the crumbs from last night’s dinner.

To smile and be at peace with the messiness of my life…and our floor.

“Holiness is being willing to bear serenely the trial of being displeasing to yourself thereby letting yourself be for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter.”

-St. Therese of Lisieux