Surviving The Chaos

When I started my blog nearly seven years ago, my title was a fluke. I really wanted It's Always Something, but it was taken. I tried a zillion options and got a zillion takens when I looked over to the bookshelf and saw Brent's business/self-help book Thriving on Chaos.

Eldest was just five. Princess was three months into four. Frodo was four months into 2. I had written and was trying to sell a novel. I'd just turned 30 and embraced my inner pink. We were making ends meet-barely. I would not call what I was doing in that chaos, "thriving" so I tried "Surviving." Whadda ya know, it was available.

Which brings me to today.And this song.

While in 2005 I was just trying to keep my little family alive and myself sane, was trying to increase my own.....for lack of a better word.....notoriety *snort*, was trying to put forth the image that I had it all together, and if not all together, at least working towards that end, was trying to start an orphans ministry with many false starts and few steps forward, was trying to fit into the soccer mom, church going, classy cool slender yoga lady who was still politically aware...

Today, I am wrecked. In so many ways.

On James and Beth Moore: Do not, I repeat, do NOT do this study if you like yourself. James is my favorite book in the Bible, hands down. Has been since 1998 when I discovered it the summer before I started grad school. I can quote or paraphrase much of it.

And it is to my horror that I have been (figuratively) slapped across the face more times in the last month for my careless tongue (and typing fingers) that I can possibly convey. Humbled doesn't even begin to touch it.

If you genuinely enter into a Bible study expecting to learn and be changed, God will show up and help you. But it will probably hurt. And He will probably drag other people into it to point out the error of your ways.

On "7" and Jen Hatmaker: read it. Shane Claiborne tried in his The Irresistable Revolution, but.....he's an activist on a mission who went from poor college student to living with the homeless. Miss Jen went from figurative suburbian soccer mom to wrecked. Somehow Shane did it for her. While he made me think, she's making me do.

On A Place at the Table: well, we've gone from adding a food to the table to reducing the food at the table. It may be due in no small part to 7. And it may be due to staring at that bowl of rice, or that peeled orange, or that pot of beans on the table and realizing how much we have in comparison.

And that's only the tip of it.

I'm ashamed of how long I've let this go. How long I've recklessly spent, recklessly spoken, recklessly thought only of myself or my little family, recklessly lived....in my safe little bubble. 

And I have no idea where I'm going or how I'm going to get there, but this caterpillar is ready to break out of her chrysalis and try free fall.

I have almost quit giving a crap what people think. I have almost quit obsessing over blog stats. I have almost reached the conclusion that I don't have to share my opinion. (shocker, I know) I have almost quit wanting to be skinny enough for a bikini. (I still want to be a slim, strong yoga mom, but it is more about health and less about the pool now. I'm 36 with 5 children. WHO am I trying to get the attention of, anyway? All the other mothers?) I have almost quit caring if I annoy people on facebook for sharing too much about global poverty instead of annoying them with my gorgeous children, dinner plans or latest vacation.

And on the flip side of that, man, do I ever care what God thinks.

That has to be step one, if there will ever be a step two.

*to be continued*