It Always Comes in Threes

I’m a bit late getting the blog up this week because – well – life happened.  In our family we have a saying, “stuff always comes in threes.” Stuff is the word I use for those random life events that are badly timed and more than inconvenient.  And I don’t know about you but these threesome events always happen in the week where I really don’t have time to add more chaos. This was one of those weeks.

I don’t want to sound like I am whining because I really am not.  I recognize that I am very blessed and the stuff we dealt with this week really was “first world problems.” For a while now our printer has been on hospice, we really have no idea when it will finally decide to quit printing for good, we already can only print in black and white. Then this week my hubby’s computer decided it was time to quit working properly requiring a trip to the Apple store to get it going again, but only for a little bit longer. The computer is on supportive care and will need to be replaced. It was after the computer issue that I realized we were headed towards a string of three.  I was waiting for the third. The third thing came quickly after the computer – our freezer quit working requiring a necessary shopping trip for a new fridge/freezer combo.  All of this in a week that was already full with extra meetings and doctor appointments and a kiddo out of school for two days. What was to be a busy week turned into chaos.

I don’t like chaos.  It is hard to navigate normal life amidst chaos. I find it hard to stay centered. The morning we discovered the freezer broke I could not be still enough to focus on my devotions and I felt guilty about just giving up on them. I worried about how we were going to replace everything that was broken and how my daughter was going to handle the fact that our evening routines were turned upside down for several nights in a row. I tried to remind myself that we are blessed to be able to afford to replace the broken fridge and technology.  I knew I was beyond blessed that I could go to the grocery store and replace the food that was lost due to the broken freezer. I just was annoyed at how my nicely planned week got turned upside down.

And then I experienced grace extended by my 9 year old. She jumped in and did every extra task asked of her with out complaining. She handled with grace an exceedingly long day of running around getting computers fixed and fridge/freezer combos bought. She adapted and moved into the chaos with an amazing flexibility that caused me to stop and refocus and breathe into the chaotic schedule of the week.

Her attitude reminded me that the best way to handle “strings of threes” is to flow into the chaos and tackle it one thing at a time. To find someone to join you in the chaos and help you with the multiple overwhelming tasks, because it is easier to breathe into flowing with it if you are not trying to survive it alone. And if you can find something humorous about it, laugh because laughing lightens the load a bit. And finally, you don’t always have to fix it all in one night (even if it might feel like it). Sometimes you just have to put it all aside for a while, do some self care, get a good nights sleep and come back to it later.

Once I remembered these things, I found myself finding my center again. I began seeing the blessings God was providing like friends loaning coolers and my kiddo waking up in the morning and making me my breakfast smoothie, just to surprise me.  And just like that amidst the chaos of my most recent “string of threes” God’s grace was abundant.