Divine Chaos

I’ve come to believe that there are seasons in our lives that only make sense in reverse.

When we’re living through them, they rarely feel meaningful. They feel disruptive. They show up as relationships that begin to unravel, careers that suddenly no longer fit, unexpected health challenges, doors that quietly close, dreams that stop making sense, or plans we’ve spent years building that seem to dissolve almost overnight. From the inside, those seasons don’t feel like they’re leading us anywhere. They simply feel like everything is falling apart.

Yet when I look back over my own life, and when I listen to the stories of so many others, I keep noticing the same pattern. The moments that shaped us most were almost never the moments we would have chosen. They were the moments that chose us. Maybe you’ve noticed that too. Maybe there’s a season you can finally understand because enough time has passed for you to see where it was leading. Or maybe you’re standing in the middle of one right now, where life feels uncertain, and every instinct is telling you to hold on a little tighter to what used to feel safe.

If that’s where you are, I understand.

Because there was a time when I believed the purpose of every storm was simply to survive it. To get through it. To figure out what had gone wrong so I could put everything back the way it had been. Now I’m not so sure.

These days, I find myself wondering if some storms arrive for an entirely different reason. I wonder if there are moments when life becomes too honest to let us remain where we’ve already outgrown ourselves.

I don’t know if there’s a better name for that. Over the years, I’ve simply started calling it divine chaos.

Not because I believe God sends hardship to teach us lessons or that suffering is somehow required for us to grow. That has never been my experience. But I have noticed that when we ignore the quiet whispers long enough, life has a remarkable way of speaking a little louder. Sometimes it’s a feeling we can’t shake. Sometimes it’s a conversation we can’t stop replaying. Sometimes it’s the growing awareness that we’ve been settling for a version of life that no longer reflects who we’re becoming. And sometimes it arrives as a storm that rearranges everything.

I’ve stopped wondering whether every storm comes from God. Instead, I find myself wondering what becomes possible because the storm arrived.

What if the relationship that ends creates space for the one that finally feels like home? What if the job that disappears makes room for work that feels more aligned with who you really are? What if the move you never wanted places you in the community that changes your life? What if the business that struggles becomes the very thing that teaches you how to build the one you’ve been dreaming about?

Looking back, I’ve noticed something I couldn’t see while I was living through those seasons. The life I have today could not have existed if the life I had then hadn’t first been disrupted.

That realization always brings me back to one particular season.

Between 2019 and 2021, it felt like every foundation beneath me had begun to shift. My health was struggling. My marriage was unraveling. My career no longer felt stable. Then COVID changed the world almost overnight, and whatever certainty any of us thought we had seemed to disappear with it. At the time, it felt relentless. Every time I thought I had found solid ground, something else moved beneath me. I remember thinking, Can I just catch my breath? Can one thing stay steady for a little while? But life kept bringing me back to the same place.

Looking back now, I can see that it wasn’t trying to punish me. It was trying to get my attention.

There were truths I had quietly lived beside for years. Truths that had become so familiar I barely questioned them anymore. I had learned to explain things away. To minimize what didn’t feel right. To convince myself that I could carry just a little more. I had become incredibly good at surviving.

Then one day, everything changed.

The moment I realized that what had become normal for me was also becoming normal for my children, something inside me shifted. I knew I couldn’t ask them to grow up believing this was what love looked like. I couldn’t protect the life we had while ignoring the life we were actually living.

People often talk about finding the courage to leave. If I’m honest, I don’t remember it feeling like courage.

It felt like clarity.

There are moments in life when you see something so clearly that you can’t return to the version of yourself that didn’t know. That was one of those moments.

For years, I had told myself I wanted things to change. The truth is, I wasn’t changing them. I had become incredibly good at adapting to what wasn’t healthy because it was familiar. Familiar had become comfortable, even when it was painful. I knew how to survive there. The unknown felt far more frightening than the life I had slowly learned to tolerate.

Eventually, life moved me in a way I hadn’t been willing to move myself.

At the time, it felt like everything was being taken away.

Today, I see something completely different.

Life wasn’t taking my future away. It was creating the space my future had been waiting for.

That doesn’t mean those years weren’t painful. They were some of the hardest years of my life. There was grief. Fear. Uncertainty. More questions than answers. Days when I wondered if I would ever feel like myself again. But somewhere in the middle of all of that, something else was happening, almost so quietly that I didn’t recognize it.

I was finding my way back to myself.

Not the version of me that knew how to keep everyone else comfortable. The version of me that had finally learned how to stop abandoning herself.

Today, my life looks very different than it did then. More importantly, I am very different than I was then. I trust myself in ways I never did before. I’ve found a peace that doesn’t depend on everything around me being peaceful. I move through uncertainty with far less urgency to control every outcome because I’ve learned that control and peace rarely live in the same place.

My children are thriving. They’ve experienced healing in their own ways. Their relationship with their dad looks different today than it did during those years. Healing doesn’t erase the past, but it reminds me that life continues to unfold in ways we can’t always predict.

If you had asked me back then whether I wanted that storm, I would have said no without hesitation.

If you asked me today whether I would erase it…

I wouldn’t.

Not because I believe suffering is necessary.

But because I know who I became because of it.

I spent so many years trying to become who everyone else needed me to be that somewhere along the way, I lost sight of myself. The storm didn’t make me stronger.

It brought me home.

As I look back now, I can see this pattern showing up again and again. Different circumstances. Different chapters. The same quiet invitation. Life has a remarkable way of refusing to let us remain where we’ve already outgrown ourselves.

Maybe you’ve experienced that too.

Maybe your story looks nothing like mine. Maybe your season was losing someone you loved. A career ending before you were ready. A diagnosis that changed everything. A friendship that quietly drifted away. A leap of faith that made no sense until years later. Or maybe you’re standing in the middle of your own storm right now, wondering why everything feels so uncertain.

If that’s where you are, I don’t have an explanation. I don’t think anyone truly does. But I do have an invitation.

Instead of asking, Why is this happening to me? What if you gently asked yourself, What has become impossible for me to ignore? What truth keeps asking for my attention? What part of me already knows it’s time to move, even if I don’t yet know where I’m going?

You don’t have to force meaning before you’re ready. You don’t have to rush yourself into gratitude while you’re still grieving. Just stay present. Stay curious. Trust that clarity doesn’t always arrive before the first step. Sometimes it meets us because we were willing to take it.

Before You Move On…

Take a moment and think back over your own life.

Can you identify a season that, at the time, felt like everything was unraveling? A relationship that ended. A job you lost. A move you never expected to make. A diagnosis. A conversation that changed the direction of your life.

Now look at that season with the wisdom you have today.

What did it make possible that never could have happened if everything had stayed the same?

And if you’re in the middle of your own storm right now, perhaps this is the only question you need to carry with you:

What if this isn’t the end of the story? What if it’s the beginning of a life that couldn’t have found you any other way?