This season. It’s one of chaos.

Confession: I don’t do chaos well.

As a creative, the noise and disorder of chaos shuts down the part of me that needs to be free wheeling to create.

As a left-brained professional, the constant swirl of uncertainty threatens to paralyze me. I want to do my job with excellence, but the rules keep changing. The guidelines shift as the plane is made while flying. It’s an analogy that’s been used at the university I teach at, and it’s an apt one. And I work at a place that has been preparing as much as possible…and it’s still chaos.

Some days, I haven’t responded well. At all.

I want to work ahead, but freeze because I don’t have time for my efforts to be invalidated with later changes.

I’ve waited to get a pertinent piece of information on a certain date, only to have that date move.

Add in kids in four different schools, and a husband who’s been recovering from an injury, and this month has been really hard.

Unfortunately, I know I’m not alone.

Here’s what I know in the midst of the chaos:

• God is still and always will be good. His character never changes. My circumstances might, but He doesn’t. I can rest in that knowledge and lean into Him.
• This is an opportunity to press in. Life often goes very fast for our family. We’ve had years of taking the kids somewhere every night of the week. That hasn’t been our life since about March 15th. Instead we’ve had a chance to slow down. Spend time together. And press into our walk with God through the gift of time to read, journal, and process. I’ve been reading Get Out of Your Head by Jennie Allen and None Like Him by Jen Wilkin. Get Out of Your Head has been the kick I needed to push out of my thoughts. If your mind is anything like mine has been lately, it is so easy to spiral in our thoughts and this book has been what I needed to stop some of the craziness between my ears. None Like Him has helped me remember all the ways God is bigger and oh so different from me. It’s led me to focus on who He is and helped me lift my eyes from me. The combination of the two is a powerful one-two punch.
• God has a plan. He just doesn’t always show us the steps between where we are and the destination. If you’re struggling with this like I have been, I highly recommend this sermon from Elevation Church and Dharius Daniels…So, so good and challenging. This is steak, y’all. And the reminders and insights contained in this sermon filled six pages in my journal and has meat I’m pondering a couple weeks later. Frankly, I need to go back and watch it again.
• Look for moments of peace. This weekend that meant exploring my flower beds to build bouquets. It was eating tomatoes fresh out of our garden.

It’s been looking for and leaving books in Free Little Libraries around our community while I’ve been on walks.It’s celebrating that I can work from home on our patio. 

What ways can you find the good and beauty in the fragmented moments we live in?