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Stillness within the chaos (13 July)

This week’s thought has been written by Sandra Crawford, EBA Trustee

Stillness within the chaos

My husband Tony has always wanted to build his own house, so I sort of relented and we moved last year into a 3 story house that needs a total refurb.  We are told by neighbours that it is a ‘typical Jaywick house’; walls have been added to make more rooms the problem is those walls have been built on top of the carpets!   There are dangerous parts of the house, we found wiring between the floorboards and the carpets.  There are annoying parts, for 14 months I had a cooker, kitchen sink and freezer all on separate floors. There are frustrating parts, whenever we start on a job we find we need to do 6 other jobs before we can safely deal with the one we were trying to tackle.

We live in chaos, wherever we look around the house there is mess. We are doing a lot of the work ourselves, which means things only get done on a Saturday, so progress is slow.  There are bits of the house that are unsteady, some parts have been unsafe, we can’t see clearly out of any windows as they all need replacing, and prices of materials are rising rapidly.  We will be living like this for several years to come.

The house feels like a bit of a parable to me.  Wherever we look at the moment things feel uncertain, unsteady, unsafe, whether that be on the world stage, national stage, in our town or in our churches.

I am quite proud of myself that I’ve only had one complete melt down about the state of the house in the last 12 months.  I think that is due to the fact that our small lounge on the top floor has a spectacular view of the beach and the sea, everyone who walks into that room says ‘wow’.  Tony and I spend a lot of time in the evenings just looking out to sea, watching the colours change as the sun goes down, it is spectacular when its calm and also when its stormy. Tony has also commented the sunrise is awesome as well but I value my sleep and haven’t seen one yet.   Our lounge is a God given view, a place to sit and be, a place to recentre our thoughts and ignore the chaos in the rest of the house for a while.

Psalm 8 The Message

I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewellery,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?

 God, brilliant Lord,
your name echoes around the world.

As we live and serve in the chaos of our world which feels unsteady, unsafe, and we often can’t see clearly

I wonder where you’re finding a God given viewing point? Where are you finding to be still, to rest a while,  and recentre your thoughts?