When you make big changes in your life, expect chaos.

It just comes with the territory.  You have to disrupt the established patterns, move things around, dig through, upheave, tear out, throw out, sort, etc.  It looks like chaos.  It feels like chaos.  It leads to your new beautiful creation.  If you’re feeling like you’re in the middle of chaos, chances are, you are in the thick of some serious changes.  Breathe through it, keep at it, face your fears, do the work.  Change is already happening and BIG things are coming your way.

My current chaos looks like this:

Half of my kitchen is on the back porch and all of our furniture and belongings are packed into our basement so that we can get new hardwood flooring installed.  Lowe’s screwed up our order. My entire family was on antibiotics for strep throat when we left for vacation. While on vacation, we had to coordinate someone else to pick up our flooring since Lowe’s didn’t deliver it (as promised, since they forgot to order it the first time). Also while on vacation, I started having symptoms of Iritis again.  It’s some kind of auto-immune response which causes inflammation in the eye.  The last time I had this I couldn’t see clearly for six weeks. SIX WEEKS.  I had to get a new prescription called in even though I have the $78 medicine at home. Upon returning from vacation, we find our newly installed flooring is not laying flat, it has a huge bubble right in the highest trafficked area of our floor. That night my daughter wakes up sick, I pick her up to rush her to the bathroom but she throws up as I’m almost to the hall.  I slip in her throw-up landing us both on the floor.  My foot is sliced open on the stack of extra trim boards in the hallway.

Sigh.

Is it stressful?  Yes.  But I also can take some perspective here and see that I’m still making progress towards big things.  

• I’m going to have new flooring in my house! 
• I’m going to go through nearly all my belongings and purge to my heart’s content. 
• My daughter thankfully has shown no further signs of sickness! 
• We got to soak up some sun with good friends in Florida! 
• I caught the Iritis early and am treating it without my vision becoming cloudy!!  
• While on vacation, I still managed to get in a workout most days.

I’m also learning things.  

• The airport in St. Pete Beach (PIE) has absolutely terrible food choices.  Don’t rely on food in that airport.
• There is some kind of correlation between Florida and me developing Iritis.  I’ve actually had this three times now, all three after going to Florida.
• Don’t expect Lowe’s to do anything they say they will do.
• Be persistent in asking people to make it right when you’re paying them to do something.
• There is a downside to hardwood flooring: they’re slippery when wet.

Chaos comes with the territory of creation.  So if you feel like your life is a little chaotic, just know that change is already happening and BIG things are coming your way.