More Chaos

The Launch Week for "All the Things"

Good morning friends.
If you have been following along this was the first week that I was intending to go ‘full bore’ with the content that I will be sharing here on Contentment in the Chaos. But my intensions were just that…mine. The last week and a half has brought more challenges that I had anticipated, so here we are, I have missed my deadline for the weekly ‘Hearts’ newsletter that should have been emailed out several days ago.
Now, I could blame this on the Holiday Monday, but that would be untrue, it was purely my tardiness amid the chaos of the weekend.

You see, last week I began to finally read a book that I am on the Launch Team for, Abbie Halberstadt’s new book Hard Is Not The Same Thing As Bad. Well let me tell you that this is very very true, and whole lot of HARD has happened since I picked it up and began reading it. Little “hard” moments to start, and they escalated to BIG HARD moments by the end of the week.

What makes these trials hard but not bad is only because of the saving blood of Christ that I place my hope and trust in each and every day. I realize you are probably curious about what the “hard” things were? The first day I began reading it, I set my printed PDF copy of the book down to go use the washroom. All I needed/ wanted to do was use the washroom. I came back to a baby pickled in Balsamic Vinegar. This though was not bad and I did learn a lesson. The lesson I learned, was that I should have just stopped procrastinating on pulling out the stove to clean behind it (like I had been telling myself I would do) and God delivered me a trial of messy vinegar covered infant and floors, so that I then HAD to pull out the stove and clean behind it.

Next was the Full Moon…no sorry, the SECOND Full Moon, and while I do not believe in any superstitions or hoojoo woojoo jargon, I do believe that the way that the Full Moon effects the tides, similarly effects our bodies because we are made up of 60% water. Our third born has the temperament of a werewolf when Full Moons come around so the trial of her rage and anger and irregular emotions was “hard”.

Thursday I was not intending to go anywhere but then received a message from my dad for us to go have supper with him and my Grandma, and I was to make the meal. Everything within me in that moment recoiled at the thought of having to go and cook dinner because I just wanted to stay in. Finally my mind came around to the idea and I could see the positives in it. Thursday has become “Date Night” for my husband and I. We don’t do anything fancy, we just take turns planning a fun at home date night for after the kiddos go to bed. I had decided that by going for dinner it would mean I wouldn’t have to do dishes that night, and I could pack the kiddos pj’s and toothbrushes in hopes they might fall asleep on the way home, so then we could have our date night as soon as we plopped them into their beds. My dad has always lived with my Grandma and we typically try to visit once a week, so all the boxes were checked, and what I had initially viewed as “hard” ended up not being so.

Then Saturday afternoon I got a call from my dad. My grandma had fallen Friday night and had broken her hip. She had been transferred to a larger city hospital and was set for surgery Sunday. This news was HARD. My heart was prepared.
Saturday night I received the next call I knew was going to be coming. Grandma had passed away.

The weekend went completely different than anticipated. HARD.
Our back to school plans, postponed a week. HARD.
The weight and stress of all of the family things my heart is bearing right now. HARD.
The feelings of being a failure over the fact that I did not record last Wednesday’s podcast episode, and this email is coming out super late. HARD.
The thoughts of wondering how I would get everything done before the funeral with four busy little kiddos, and feeling completely beat and exhausted without the extra stuff now added. HARD.
None of this though was BAD.

While my flesh would love to be free from all of these HARD things, I know that all they are doing is shaping me, even though I cannot see the outcome. Elisabeth Elliot mentions in several of her talks about “The Sculptor”, and the sculptor must use tools of torture. Hammer blows. Files and chisels, in order to make something beautiful, out of something that at one point was not worth even looking at. All the things that we can view so quickly in this life as bad, quite often are just HARD. They are hard because we would rather not have to feel the pain and pressure and uncomfortableness of them. HE is making us into something we cannot yet see. Fashioning us into the likeness of His Son. Will we be conformed to Christ’s image by accepting the HARD and allowing the potter to do what He wills with us? Or will we wallow in self pity and complain and question “why do these ‘bad’ things always happen to me?”

It takes a shift in perspective. A daily dying to self. A constant recalculating of the path your heart wants to try and tell your mind to go. In the end, the outcome of who you become when you choose to accept the hard things, rather than always proclaiming the negative perspective that everything is bad, will make you into the someone you have likely always wanted to be. Doing it while acknowledging that, that someone you are becoming is far from the person you once were, because you are now bearing the image and light of Christ is even greater! May the Holy Spirit convict you, and stir in your heart the need to change your mindset from one that aligns with this world, to one that aligns with the WORD.

Hard is not the same thing as bad.

Order your copy of HINTSTAB (that’s the coined acronym) TODAY!
HINTSTAB BOOK

In Christ,
Jenna