Today, I guest blogged over at Seriously Write about writing through chaotic times.
https://seriouslywrite.blogspot.com/2020/07/do-you-thrive-in-chaos-by-jan-thompson.html
Check it out!
Featured is my entire Savannah Sweethearts collection of 11 books. The series is complete!
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Many years ago, when my son was in preschool, I chatted with another mother at our church nursery. Two of her kids were running in circles around her, and she was carrying her toddler on her hip. She did not have a diaper bag with her. The toddler was missing a shoe, and the mother said she might have left that one shoe at home…
In spite of the chaos around her, my friend looked calm and peaceful. Like she was in the eye of a hurricane, you know? And all her kids survived to adulthood. God provided!
“For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints” (I Corinthians 14:33, KJV).
There is a big difference between confusion and chaos. While some Bible translations use the word “confusion,” other translations use the word “disorder.” Strong’s Concordance says that the original Greek word for confusion is akatastasia, which means instability or tumult. In fact, Strong went on to describe an environment filled with “disturbance, upheaval, revolution.”
The word chaos first appeared in the fifteenth century out of the Greek word khaos by way of Latin and French. My dictionary says chaos means “complete disorder and confusion.”
The world might be chaotic around us. Our lives might also be chaotic. But Christ in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27), keeps us from total confusion!
Is there chaos in your writing life?
When I was thirty years old, I prayed about what I would like to do for the rest my life, and it was clear to me that I should fulfill my life-long goal of being a full-time writer. However, shortly after I made the decision to leave my IT career for a writing career, God gave us a child, and I finally became a mother after many childless years. God blessed us with a super busy life all the way from the diaper stage through many years of homeschool and then college life.
As an empty nester now, I assumed I would be free to write all day long and I could spend the rest of my life writing all the books that I have planned for decades.
Not so fast!
Ever since my son finished high school, I have been beset by health problems. After his senior trip overseas, I fell sick for the rest of the year and into the next year, which derailed my plans to write many books. When I recovered from those bouts of recurring colds, I was diagnosed with heart issues.
After God provided a cardiologist for me, the COVID virus pandemic swept the world, shutting down most of the USA, and thus our normal life. My son’s college campus closed, and he was home for online school. To go out or not to go out? To mask or not to mask? So many questions with few answers.
And now my husband has heart problems, too. Seriously?
On top of all that, in the middle of the pandemic, I was also diagnosed with a frozen shoulder. Frozen what? I had never heard of such a thing. It was a new medical terminology for me. My orthopedic specialist said it could take one to two years to thaw it out. I ended up in physical therapy twice a week and will be in it for the rest of this year and probably next year. I hate to admit that I cried at PT—even as I wondered if those painful sessions could be written off as book research. Hmm…
I never expected to semi-retire into an empty nest full of health problems. It was one thing after another, not to mention all the other events that happened in the family, including an aunt passing away in the middle of COVID season. Social distancing prevented us from attending her funeral as well as preventing me from visiting my widowed mother in fragile health.
Chaos after chaos. And yet…
How is God’s Word true for you in a chaotic world?
I am thankful that God is always faithful. God never changes. He is always the same (Hebrews 13:8). The Lord is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13). He is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).
“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39, KJV).
No matter what goes on in the world, I am grateful that God’s peace still prevails and surpasses all comprehension (Philippians 4:6).
At the end of the day, if Christ shines through the chaos of life, then regardless of what happens, I am where I need to be: in the palm of His hand. After all, He who began a good work in us will also complete it (Philippians 1:6).
“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6, KJV).
Do you live in a chaotic world? How does His perfect will prevail for you in your times of chaos?
May God always keep us safe in His care!
Joyfully in Jesus,
Jan Thompson
