Blinded by choas
When I was a little girl, I used to love going to Michael’s craft store with my mom. She is a big scrapbooker so she’s always looking to stock up on stickers. One afternoon we were browsing in the sticker isle and my mom disappeared. I searched up and down the isles to the right and left of me and she was nowhere to be found, so I had to resort to asking one of the clerks for help. The clerk then proceeded to call my mom’s name over the intercom to meet me at the front desk. I was so embarrassed. My mom ended up only being a few isles down from where I was, but I was so struck with panic about being lost that I was blinded by my own helplessness. If I had just taken a deep breath and remained calm, I would have been able to find my mom by myself, but because I was in distress, I wasn’t sure how to cope.
We live in this mode of distress all the time because of our addiction to our schedules and plans. If we don’t abide by these plans, we can feel like we are not in control or chaotic and sometimes even purposeless.
If you were to have an inside look into my brain you would likely see a Google Calendar-color-coordinated schedule, to-do lists, scripts on what to say to someone so to say them perfectly and other miscellaneous thoughts. I have it all lined out and trust me there’s backup plans to the back up plans. However, when an unpredictable situation arises, like getting lost in Michael’s, everything goes up in flames. I think of that episode from SpongeBob where the brain office is searching tirelessly for random information but goes up in flames when he forgets his name.
So, what do we do when our plans go up in flames and we have lost our way? We need two things: a guide and a purpose.
Most of the time we are sufficient on our own, but there are times when we need someone to call over the intercom announcing that we are lost, and we haven’t got it figured out. As embarrassing as it was for them to call my mom’s name over the intercom, it was also incredibly relieving that I wasn’t alone. That I wasn’t going to be lost forever. We need these guides to show us the way when we get lost.
When chaos is in control we can quickly be confused as to what our purpose was in the first place, but our guides can also speak truth into our life to remind us of our ultimate identity and to reconvict us of our unique purpose. Sometimes our purpose is as simple as finding your mom in the craft store or something more complex like your life purpose. Regardless of what it is, it's important to return to it often so we aren’t blinded by chaos when it occurs.
The feeling of chaos is not one I want to get used to, but I can extinguish its flames more quickly when I rely on my guides and my purpose.
Good Company is a ministry at the University of Kansas. We seek to bring authentic connection in a world of AirPods.
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