Everything In Its Place

I like an orderly house, one with lots of nooks and corners, one that has a comfortable niche for each thing within its walls. Nothing is strewn about; each item reposes in its own quiet abode, like robin eggs clustered in a nest.

We take our meals at a custom-built table that, when fully extended, stretches like a vast plain across the dining room. Off to the south in the breakfast nook stands a smaller table where no one dares to dine. Sunshine streams in the windows and illumines the reason why: the table is too crowded with projects to share space with a plate. A sewing machine and patterns pieces cut from blue and yellow calico have laid claim to much of the table top, but they compete with two bean plants, part of a science project. One plant is daily making a valiant effort to conquer more of the territory surrounding its quart mason jar. The second plant, sequestered in an up-ended shoebox to demonstrate its need for light, is not faring so well. The sewing basket in the center of the table fights for turf with a chunk of wasps’ nest that our littlest one found blown down from a tree. At the back of the table, a finger painting in blues and purples dries on a disposable surgical tray propped against an unopened jigsaw puzzle. Lurking on the periphery of it all is a lone bottle of glass cleaner, abandoned when someone was interrupted at her window washing.

As much as I like order, this clutter doesn’t bother me. It may look chaotic, but it is a controlled chaos. As one project is completed and another fulfills its purpose, I put things away or throw them out, and wipe the table clean. A few days later the cycle starts fresh again.

My life is a lot like my table. I prefer it to be neat and orderly and I want to organize and arrange every aspect. Seldom though does the unfolding day first consult my charts. The essential fabric – faith, family and friends – does claim the biggest portion of my life. But while some tendrils of my life thrive and grow, others languish. Unexpected happenings blow in from nowhere, and oftentimes my plans are interrupted. In Christ I’ve received all the pieces, but I haven’t put them all together yet. And though God sometimes draws a brush of new understanding across my life, the paint takes time to dry.

My circumstances may seem chaotic, but when the dust threatens to get too thick, there is One who is in control. He sorts through my life, putting the important things in their places, throwing out those which have served their purpose, and bringing His light to the shoots that are in darkness. He clears the way before me, and I can move on.