Embrace the Chaos
Every problem is an opportunity to find something better.
I had a completely different article almost ready to post last week when something happened: Chaos.
While sitting in my 120-year-old farmhouse at the kitchen table Sunday morning, I was sipping my last cup of coffee when a deep, loud thump broke the silence. My cat looked up at me and immediately flew around the corner and up the stairs. She usually runs away from scary noises, so I knew I had to get on her tail. We both got to the top of the stairway and proceeded to tip-toe into the big attic room that is my office, which houses two large desks, computers, a massive amount of aviation books, an LP collection, musical instruments, recording equipment, and a closet full of supplies and memorabilia. Everything seemed to be in place. I looked inside the closet, checked all the book shelves. Nothing. I shrugged and took myself and my coffee cup back downstairs to wash dishes and get ready to go to church. The cat stayed, hunched in a corner, watching.
The day was hot and beautiful and full of activity. By 9 p.m. I was happily tired, walked upstairs to retrieve a book and stopped in my tracks. The big thump my cat and I had heard hours before revealed itself. The floor was slanting to the middle of the room where a high-top table-desk sits in front of a long window that overlooks serene farmland. At that moment, I wasn’t feeling so serene. I looked closely around the top of the closet and realized that the frame had come away from the wall at least an inch.
The days that have ensued since that Sunday have been filled with a roller coaster ride of emotions: denial, panic, anxiety, fear, frustration – and that’s just the short list. Fortunately, I have amazing friends who are ready at the first word to step in and help. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start.
In a moment of physical and mental exhaustion, after trying for hours to compile a list of potential options and tasks involved in fixing the situation, and after a night of no sleep, I asked a dear friend:
“What is the first thing you would do if you were me?”
She answered, “Well, first I would pray.”
Of course, I was praying! She knew that I was doing that constantly. Did she think I was praying incorrectly? Or not often enough? My question was about the physical, the here-and-now.
In her gentle wisdom, she stood her God-ground and said very quietly,
“God already has the answers for you.”
My friend has been through a lot of chaos over the last three years, and through it all she found an amazing relationship with God. In her own words, she has become a “zealot” – “a fanatically committed person” as the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines it.
I had to sit back after that conversation and re-examine my approach to the problem. We’re all allowed weak moments. I had to confront mine and realize that she was correct. God has the answers; I need to stop trying to run the show and concentrate on being the worker -- the worker who listens first, gathers all the answers, and then goes about doing the assigned tasks.
Consistency is key to getting through the chaos.
As of today, I have no idea how my situation is going to be resolved, but I do know one thing: I have to keep praying, keep listening, and keep going — in that order. One of the most anxious moments I experienced after looking at the slanted floor was glancing at my computers one second afterward. The first thoughts that came to my mind after visualizing the work that would need to be done to fix my house were, “How can I keep working through this chaos?” And “Substack!” How in the world would I be able to do my daily client work, get through the bedlam of packing up and moving an entire floor of belongings (to God knows where, when, and how), and complete my Substack posts?!
In the face of chaos, I have to find a way to be consistent with everything, no matter what happens around me. Imagine, in the middle of the turmoil, Jesus giving up on His responsibility -- the most difficult mission anyone has ever faced on the planet!
“Father, this is nuts! I can’t go on. It’s too much to face. I’m afraid. I’m tired. I quit.”
Jesus did have the right to ask for the “cup to be taken” from him, and He did. (Luke 22:41-42) But God’s ultimate answer and strength propelled Him forward for the sake of all of humanity.
I keep asking God to take the (so much lesser) difficult cups that keep coming my way. We all go through it. As big as some of our problems may seem, we start by trying to fix things ourselves; it doesn’t work. God needs to be first in everything, especially within the chaos.
The sinking floor is the tip of the iceberg. Along with my friends and neighbors, I am currently involved in an ongoing battle for my life and theirs – literally – against a force that is beyond all evil, but that’s a story for another day. Perhaps the floor is a metaphor for the entire world right now, and God wants to use it to show me something big.
As my friend also points out:
“Every problem is an opportunity to find something better.”
Sometimes within a difficult moment you want to strangle people who toss out these gems, but in reality, my friend is so very correct. She is a zealot for Truth. We have to live what we say we believe, every hour of every day, and we have to keep reminding ourselves and others to do so, even when the words sound like platitudes. They are not. Words have the power to move mountains in heaven and earth.
I’m sitting at my little kitchen table as I write, which is my new desk. My insurance agent called at 7 a.m. to confirm that my homeowners policy will not pay a dime for any of the repairs. Many things upstairs still need to be packed up, taken apart, and brought downstairs before any investigative work can begin. I still have to find, buy, rent, or build something for items I have no room for downstairs. Even when the joist(s) and/or foundation are back in order, I have been advised for safety reasons not to move heavy furniture and office equipment back upstairs, so I will need to invent a new office space.
My cat is looking at me, quite confused, as she sits within the chaos of our once peaceful domain now filled with extra furniture, computers, and piles of boxes.
“We’ll get through this,” I tell her. “God has the answers.”
Any and all prayers are greatly appreciated, of course.