Structure out of chaos.

Good Afternoon Y'all.

First of all, I must say, since moving down south I'm truly fascinated with the fact that people truly do say y’all and I'm informed that all y'alls is the plural of y'all. How great is that! My goal for the next year that I'm down here is to correctly use the word y'all in a sentence, in the correct context, and in sure flow of conversation, meaning that I don't force myself to say it. It'll just come out. I figure once that happens I can consider myself a true southerner, ha!

I currently find myself living in Charlotte, NC. I am serving 10.5 months in the AmeriCorps working as the Casework Management Coordinator for American Red Cross - and I love it all! I could sing wonders for days pertaining to the wonderful, interesting, broken, hurting, devastated, and most importantly beautiful, beautiful clients I get to help. Ah, but that would take days, so saying that I love it all will have to suffice for now in regards to summarizing my experience thus far.

Moving on, structure out of chaos.

I was out doing some errands the other day. As we all know summer is the time for road construction. I feel completely surrounded by it these days. There is this particular stretch close to my townhouse that is utter chaos. I think all four lanes are torn up, orange cones everywhere, and then at times part of one lane will be paved so you dip in and out while driving. It's a mess. Well it seems as if they have finally conquered this absolute mess and completed the paving portion of the construction. While attacking these errands, I found myself driving on this newly paved road, which for some odd reason I find completely refreshing. It's kind of like roller-blading on newly paved cement. Something about it..ahh, the wheels...so smooth.

Anyway, I find myself on this newly paved road, right? And due to the fact I like new cement I thought I would love it, but what I found was utter chaos. Complete and total confusion. You see the road lines hadn't been painted yet. So I was driving around on a blank sheet of concrete with no idea as to how to navigate myself in a straight line (ha, Matt and Chris, just so you know, I apparently must still drive like packman - eating the center lines). I may not drive on the center of the road but the lines at least keep me on the road, ha.

Oh and just so you remember, I've only recently moved down to Charlotte so I'm not all that great at directions. On this errand, I had a decent idea of how to get to my final destination, but how soon I'd come upon it and exactly where it was, was a little vague.

So here I am driving…I know I want to end up at the post office and I kind of know how to get there but the thing standing between me and the post office was this non-painted concrete road. The thing is, I was driving with lines on the road up until a certain point and then all of a sudden, there were no lines. I became frantic. I felt confused. There were other cars coming at me, beside me, and behind me. I could see that stop lights were ahead but had no way of staying focused on anything beyond my immediate moment of driving. I had no way to prepare for what was coming and really, to be honest, I was in all kinds of disarray.

Good news is eventually I landed myself safely into the parking lot of the post office.

But why would I bring this up in relation to Christ?

Oh, I just knew you'd ask.

I see Christ all over this. I suppose I see God working in anything that is chaotic. You see God stepped into chaos and created order, His creation. He is the God of order. He made things to work orderly. It wasn't until the fall of man that chaos stepped in once again. So when I see things that are disorderly, I see that the situation is in need of order.

In this case particularly, I see it so clearly in relation to my race with Christ. You see so often in life things will be going well. I think I have it all figured out and know exactly where I'm going. The crazy thing is often times I just think I know where I'm going and what's going to happen. I'll be cruising right along and then out of nowhere things don't go as I planned. Chaos and confusion step in. I know there are things up ahead but I can barely focus on the here and now. I get frustrated and anxious, nervous and worried. Things come up at me, alongside me, and up from behind me and I feel helpless in the situation.

Driving with no lines reminds me that I need a God who brings order. Chaos and confusion are part of our broken world but we have a God who makes order and brings peace into the brokenness. There are times when things will not go as planned and there are times when I feel completely helpless, but God remains faithful and He always carries me home. I always land up safely back into His arms.

What's even more beautiful about this is that God doesn't give us ten feet walls to drive in He doesn't make it so we can't see where we're going. He doesn't make it so we’re always completely blinded to the upcoming. He simply gives us guidelines. He simply makes it easier to travel down the road. The road with simple painted lines brought complete order out of the chaos, so too, with Christ. His Word, His teachings, His ways are the simple things that bring order, bring peace, land us safely into His loving ways of life. We can still see some of what lies ahead; we still get to catch all that is around us. We just get to live it in a less complicated, more beautiful way.

I continue to love God and His ways.

Cheering you on as you come to trust in a God who brings order out of chaos.

May each day flow in His ways and rest in His faithfulness.

Kaylee