Danger: Quicksand Ahead

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

I feel better.

I just had to get that out.

For the past month I’ve been holding it in, I haven’t had time to blog much because everything else is so crazy! I feel like I need to pause Today. Can we PAUSE Today? For like, maybe 48 hours? That would be awesome.

Why have I been feeling this way? What’s changed?

NORMAL changed. Normal flew out the window. There’s a new Normal in town. It’s a GOOD Normal, but it’s a NEW one and new Normal messed with old Routine.

Old Routine just isn’t cutting it anymore. SIONARA OLD ROUTINE!

And now I’m grasping, grasping for routine. And I’ve been sinking, sinking.

Old routine was nice. Well known. Comfortable. Old routine let us clean house on Saturday and relax and enjoy Sunday and get back to school on Monday. Old routine had time for chores in the morning and let us start school at a decent time during the week. Old routine wasn’t perfect, our house certainly never was, but it was enough, it worked, it kept us afloat.

Life has changed — for the better — and we’ve found HOME in a church, and we are gone almost all day Sunday. Wonderfully, beautifully gone with our new church family in a very non-rushed, fellowshippy kind of way. And life has changed and Saturdays have decided they don’t want to be left out, either, and for some reason or another things keep popping up. Go here, be there, do that. Wonderful, this, to get out and build relationships. But Neglected House whines “what about me?”

“Perhaps during the week, poor Neglected House, perhaps then.”

Ah, but no.

New Normal was sneaky.

New Normal threw in the crazy idea to GET HEALTHY. To go walk, with friends, 3 times a week. And that was the kicker, that was the straw that broke the household routine. Because at first, New Routine said, “Okay! No problem! New Monday will be chores before lunch and school after lunch. Take THAT busy Saturday!!” But New Normal fought back and added walking from 10-11 am on Monday mornings. So now what? And every other Tuesday before lunch is already swallowed up. And now every Wednesday from 9-10 is gone as well. (And every 4th Thursday is completely shot.) And Friday afternoons are booked up, too, taking the kids to walk with me (and several other families) and then playing at the park playground for a while after. And this is all very GOOD. NEEDED. Wonderful.

But the house. The house… I am sinking in laundry, nasty kitchen floors and chaos. I don’t want perfect!! I just want stability!

Cooking breakfast this morning, it came to me.

“On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand..

…all other ground is sinking sand.”

I *have* been trying to keep my Firm Foundation, I promise. I have been starting my day out in the word. But perhaps I have not spent enough time DURING my day trying to stay on the firm path, holding on to the guardrail of Christ. Perhaps during my day I stray into sinking sand. Sinking, sinking, sinking in new Normal, new Routine, new mess.

I’ve been saying “I have GOT to get a handle on this!”

Perhaps… I have got to get a handle on Christ!

What do YOU do.. when normal flies out the window, when you begin sinking in the quicksand of chaos?

Photo Credit: Some rights reserved by jbcurio