Saturday, October 8, 2011

Order out of Chaos

The Research Library

On a hot October afternoon, we purchased boards, nails, screws and brackets to build another simple bookcase.  I can't tell you how much this means to me, but I can say how much it cost: 12 dollars, or in local currency, 190 pesos. 
6:20pm and my husband and I set to work--after I donned  attention-grabbing work-clothes. (Well, I didn't want to risk him leaving for tomorrow what I was dying to have done today!)  Now, we're not carpenters by a long shot, but I love figuring out the measurements, and he loves to drive nails and drill holes. This is the twelfth shelf project we've done on our own, and this time we only had two little mistakes and no crooked shelves, so experience is paying off. Maybe one of these days we'll be good enough to make a little money off our effort.In spite of phone calls and kids, in an hour it was installed with the L-brackets and I began loading it. I spent two hours carting books around the school-room getting all the shelves organized. Exhausted but very content, I made the new unit the "research library", while another holds mostly Christian books, yet another is the "children's library" and I have shelves of fiction and a section for family/marriage/parenting books,  leaving the rest for school books, supplies and manipulatives. I find organizing to be a never-ending endeavor, especially because of waiting so long for those extra pesos to spend on a project. I bet just when I get things to suit me, it'll be time to move again!
Fiction and Family
I was reading somewhere that just as God brought order from chaos in Creation, as humans we have that same burning desire to bring chaos into order--we may approach it in different manners, but testifies that we bear His image. This tendency is what leads mankind to study our world. The sciences, mathematics, art, music, and architecture all flow from the need to order our surroundings.


Personally, I am fascinated with making charts, plans, menus, categories... It is what moves me to [finally] get the house cleaned, clothes washed and ironed [on a good day], meals on the table, and kids into [relative] order. I see my husband gets around and washes the car, the patio and even the litter box because of the drive to bring chaos into order. Even the girls succumb to its pull now and then!

Rebeca hung the laundry by color and size

What about you? How do you find yourself reflecting this aspect of God's character? I look forward to reading your comments. Have a blessed day.
School books and supplies--the white unit is the first we built


 

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