Today was a chaotic day. It began at 2:30 this morning and will not end until 8am tomorrow morning. Chaotic, yet awesome. An old Corps Officer of mine wrote a book called Chaotic Order, and she opens it with this:

"Chaos is essential for establishing Divine Order. This book explores the origins, nature and implications of chaos in the world and in the Bible. Chaos is defined as an unordered state that is neither good nor bad in and of itself, but an essential pre-ingredient of creation. Chaos is a gift because it is often used by God for the overthrow of human control to establish His Divine Order in our lives and the world. What looks like chaos to us can be an element from which God chooses to create. God’s Order is distinct from human order. What looks like Chaos to us is often God’s order being established. In light of this revelation, chaos is an essential part of the creative process."

When I think of Chaotic days, I think of Danielle's book, and I don't feel as stressed out as I did, and do feel more ordered, in a chaotic sorta way.

Part of my Chaotic day, involved a very chaotic re:cre8 - yet a very great re:cre8 at that.
Re:cre8, in general, is pretty chaotic, in and of itself. In addition, though, we had a youth group from Burnaby, and a school from Edmonton join us tonight. It was loud, crowded, overwhelming, and did I mention loud?

Yet in all this chaos, and noise I was able to find peace. I reckon it was because we had an additional 18 people who bore the witness of Christ, the Prince of Peace himself. We also had people upstairs in our Prayer Room interceding for us and breaking some hard ground - that I credit the Chaotic Order too.

So while all this was happening I turned around and one of the girls from the youth group was sketching a portrait of this guy who I only know as 'Skid'. Skid is one of the harder guys who comes to re:cre8, he has natural dreads from the inability to bathe, society has written him off and he carries a spirit of rejection around with him. But when I saw her sketch him - I saw someone new and beautiful. A sense of honor, dignity and identity begot Skid. I watched as Skid saw himself being created so to speak on paper. I think he was just as amazed as I was. Imperfections were wiped out as she drew his skin so delicately and his eyes so deep. There was character and emotion in this portrait. Through this portrait, I saw Skid how The Father sees him - as His beautiful child.

more truthful then a mirror is lead
eyes on paper
like lead
are the Fathers eyes
truth in lead. lies.
a mirror produces those.
convincing it is
that reflective glass
convincing sure, but not
convincing enough.
lies. the truth will overcome
the truth will
overcome
the truth will
set you free
freedom.
lead brings freedom.
lead brings identity
like lead
are the Fathers eyes
beauty is in the eye of the beholder