disaster zone recovery plan

My upstairs neighbors have a toddler who likes to ride his toy train around 12:30 every night. And despite the fact that I sleep with 2 box fans and a white noise application on my IPHONE, I am awoken by this terrible noise almost every night. I know that it is a toy train but it resembles a real train barreling through my apartment at an hour when all toddlers should be sleeping. As a result of this midnight ritual, my early mornings often start off in a whirlwind. Today was exceptionally crazy! I changed my outfit three times (leaving each unworn piece of clothing on my bed), spilled my powdered blush all down my bathroom sink, and left a dusting of baby powder all over my bedroom floor.  Since I had been in Louisiana for 4 days, the tornado of this morning only added to the disaster zone forming in my apartment. When I came home from a long day at school, I didn’t know where to begin. Should I start with laundry, unpacking, my blushed stained sink, the piles of clothes overtaking my bedroom,  or my least favorite making my bed (I washed my sheets yesterday and couldn’t force myself to make my bed last night). As I stood debating my options, my best approach was to turn up my music and keep working until my surroundings resembled my apartment again.  Since there was no method to my madness, I currently have a clean bathroom sink, organized piles of clothes to put away, rugs in the washer, a bag of recycling, scrubbing bubbles in my shower, a new picture hanging in my bedroom, and baking soda in my coffee pot.  My tornado this morning led to me randomly finding objects to clean, papers to recycle, and home improvement projects. Yet, somehow my bed is still unmade and I managed to only move my clothes from my bed to my clothes basket.  And I am making chicken stock for homemade chicken noodle soup!

How many times have we created a tornado in our lives and instead of focusing on a few “messes” added many more “messes to our lives? Or how many times have we became distracted by other tasks in our lives and ignored what needed out attention the most? When I get caught in the middle of a tornado, I keep spinning around until I have left myself in pure anguish. My life is so uprooted that I can’t begin to clean up the aftermath alone.  Fortunately, for us God always has a method to his madness. He isn’t distracted when we create disaster zones for ourselves but instead he arrives, dressed in his Hazmat gear, ready to clean up our dirt (sin) and untidiness. When we weigh ourselves down, He doesn’t add more to our load but instead He exists to either lighten our load or give us more strength to withstand our load. And when we create the tornados He definitely doesn’t scatter the pieces of our lives apart but instead He is the glue that keeps us bounded. When you find yourself standing smack in the middle of a life disaster don’t get caught in the eye of the storm or plagued by the aftermath but instead trust the method to God’s madness.  God’s method has led me through many tornados and put my life back together better than it was before and my method has left me in a continuous spiral of madness and left me with an unmade bed.  

Verse to remember:  Isaiah 48:17 This is what the Lord says-your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.”