In just over 24 hours I will be induced. If all goes smoothly, I will bring baby girl #3 home shortly after that. I am ready to not be pregnant anymore. However, I also fear the chaos that will soon follow.

I am mostly afraid, not because of the lack of sleep, or the challenges of keeping a newborn healthy and alive, but because I also have a three-year-old and a 22-mo-old at home.

My girls still rely on me for almost everything. I still have one in diapers, I still fix all their meals, I still constantly break up fights and clean up after them. Just within the last couple of months we have finally gotten into a routine where I don’t feel like the house is constantly falling apart.

I know that routine is about to be disrupted in a major way. Who will make sure there are meals on the table? Who will make sure everyone has clean clothes to wear? When will the bathroom counters get wiped down and the floors swept? Who will pick up the massive piles of toys that seem to collect throughout the house?

The answer is that I will have to let a lot of these things go for several weeks. This is hard because I dislike chaos. I thrive in organization. I am an organization queen. I dream about living in our “forever home” and having custom bins in each room so that every single thing in the house has a specific place it belongs.

Chaos scares me. When I don’t feel in control of my home, I get stressed. Stress breeds anxiety and my fuse gets shorter. I am less patient with my husband, my children, my friends. Add in the sleep deprivation that comes with “new mom” territory. The ugly sides of me are more likely to make an appearance.

I have to remind myself that I have walked this road before. Not this particular situation, per se, but situations where chaos happens. Life tends to hand us situations that we cannot control…situations where we can’t will things into working out how we want them to.

The situations and particulars are unique for each of us, but the fact that things happen is universal. There is birth, there is sickness, there is death, there is heartbreak, there is loss. There are situations that happen that are difficult and painful to navigate. Maybe you thought you had a foster baby that was yours forever, only to find out he/she was going back to a biological family member. Maybe you have a toddler and are pregnant with a second child and weeks before your husband leaves on another deployment, you find out that your landlord is not renewing your lease and you have to move (that was me).

Chaos happens. We can run from it. We can try to hide from it. We can try to control it. But none of those things actually work. Or we can choose to embrace it. We can choose to grow through it and learn from it. And we can remind ourselves that God is still in control.

Thankfully there is grace. We must give ourselves grace. We must walk in the grace God gives us. As Paul writes in 2 Cor 12:9, “But He [Christ] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

God has a funny way of letting me experience these seasons on a regular basis. Even when I thought I learned the lesson the first time, I are continually reminded that grace is something I need on the regular. I am not in control. We need each other. We need grace. We need God.

So pray for me as I enter this season of chaos. I will have good days. I will have bad days. And let me know if you are walking into a season of chaos as well. I would love to pray for you!