An Anxious Mind and a Sleeping Cat

I have done it again. I seem to be unable to learn my lesson and I find myself again in a tangled heap of overwhelmed, disorganized, thrown-together chaos. Even people who know me well believe me to be a fairly pulled-together person. They would laugh at me if they could see this mess inside my head, this eye-of-the-hurricane moment I'm in. I am typing this post one-handed, slowly, picking at the keys, as I hold a nursing baby on the other arm. I have tried to use one of those nursing pillows to prop him against me so I can use both hands to type, but even in my desperation I can feel how ridiculous that is and I gave it up. It's okay; this gives me time to choose my words carefully and think out how to explain myself. There is a pile of bills I've just paid on one side of me, a hamper of clean laundry on the floor in front of me awaiting folding, and a sleeping cat curled behind my head on the back of our couch. It is quiet and peaceful in the house, a contrast to the whirlwind in my head. It was not enough to have a new baby, or to work on finishing the last touches of my book (my other baby!), or to try to begin a career as a freelance writer. We had to go and buy a house, too. Now there are documents to sign, giant, scary checks to write, deadlines to meet, and the lingering fear that this is too good to be true and something will fall through, leaving our sweet little family with no place to live (did I mention that we told our landlord to go ahead and rent out our house on May 1st?). And this last thing is just dumb, but it is the straw that is breaking my back: I finally bought this lovely home office machine that copies, prints, scans, and faxes, and where is it? In its lovely box, because the thought of getting it out and setting it up in the ten minutes of baby happiness that I can get at one time is overwhelming. Hence the whirlwind. I often feel like Alice in Wonderland, cards and the Queen and everything all spinning around out of control, except that she gets to wake up. What do I do? In the middle of my self-induced chaos, when I am calm on the outside but frantic on the inside, there is another sound, so quiet that I have to actually lean forward to catch it. It is the faintest whisper of a sound; I turn down the volume of my panic because I need to hear what it is. I catch it again, and it is words that were written so long ago but today are just for me. I feel the words I know, that I have read over and over in times just like these, when I have added too much to my plate and have erased the margins of my life, and God reaches in, offering peace and rest to draw my frantic, harried soul back to Him. His words resonate through my tired bones, my spinning head, and pull every part of me together with this one thought: "You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you." God, while holding together the whole universe, is concerned with keeping me at peace. I just have to trust that He is there. I have to tether my mind to Him like a horse to a hitching post, like a ship to an anchor, to attach myself to Him in his unmoving, all-pervading peace, and that peace will seep into me and fill me again like it has in the past. My problem was not that He stopped being enough, it was that I had let go of my anchor in the storm. God, help me. Calm me. Anchor me. This mess is temporary, passing, fleeting; You are eternal. The baby is now sleeping soundly against me, as is the cat. The house is still quiet. The bills, the laundry, the loan documents and deadlines, all of it is just external. Inside, the storm has passed and there is also quiet. Isaiah 26:3, etched on my soul in divine penmanship, is a reminder to be quiet and trust.