Beautiful Chaos

Let me give you an idea about my past week:

To start the week off on Monday, I went into the garage to load stuff into the car to find that Jack locked me out. No keys. No cell phone. Nothing. I literally ran from house to house trying to find someone home to let me use their phone to call Jason to come home. I could see Owen on the floor in the living room through the front door and I could see Jack panicking as well. He "somehow" got my keys off the counter and kept trying to use them from the inside out. He was crying, Owen was crying, I was crying. It was, ya know, the stuff your nightmares are made of. Not being able to get to your kids. I was finally able to get a hold of my mom who brought a key over and let me in after about 30 minutes of being locked outside. When I opened the door I found Jack in his room, curled up with his blanket and sobbing, "Where's my mommy?" It broke my heart.
As if that weren't enough, our car air conditioning went out, I received an insane bill for Owen's hospital stay and got Jury Duty.

And that was just Monday.

The rest of the week pretty much went down hill from there.

It was a rough one.

On Friday Jack was bouncing off the walls and driving me nuts. He was teasing Owen and making him cry. I had a list a mile long of things to do and kept having to "redirect" Jack.

It was chaos.

I was super discouraged thinking, "This is it?! This is the glory of family life?"

Then I had a thought.

It was beautiful chaos.

One of the wonderful blessings that has come out of our experience with Gavin is a sense of what is truly important. When I complain to Jason about being smothered by my boys and not having any "me" space, he reminds me of how badly I wanted little hands and hugs after Gavin had passed away. I was so lonely and wanted to have that chaos.

And so, even though the house is a disaster, the children are crying, there are dishes in the sink, dinner sucks, I am over loaded with work and chores and other responsibilities - I am grateful for this beautiful chaos around me.