Chaos (physics) behaviour so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions. (Oxford)

Weather forecasting is both a science and a matter of guesswork. Temperature forecasts are usually pretty accurate, rainfall forecasts can be wildly inaccurate. I have watched weather radar projections of where clouds will be a few hours from now and when and where they will release their precipitation and observed that those clouds seem to have a mind of their own.

There are so many very small factors influencing the wind and rain that it isn’t possible to build a computer model that will take them all into account and provide a reliable forecast. The weather in our immediate locality is influenced by weather events in surrounding areas, and sometimes by far distant events, such as a tropical storm 2,000km away. But it is also influenced by small changes at ground level. Is the ground bare and dry? snow covered? or wet, with puddles and pools of water? Those things influence air movement. So does the state of vegetation: just starting to become green in spring, in flower, fully leafed out, or ripe and dried out. The type of vegetation makes a difference: corn, canola, wheat, pasture, weeds. The type and age of trees also affect air currents. These, and a multitude of other factors, each make their own minute impact and the result are unpredictable weather, chaos.

The same sort of thing happens in human relationships. Each person is subject to little stresses of day to day life that are not seen by others. Those things may easily influence the way we perceive the words and attitudes of others and the way others perceive our actions and reactions. Far too often, this results in chaotic behaviours that tear a family apart.

Down in New Mexico there is a Christian Child Care home that provides emergency respite care for small children when the chaos at home renders their parents unable to care for them. It is staffed by a couple who supervise and ten young ladies, all volunteers. These young ladies, from congregations of our church all over the USA and Canada, each come for six months. Most of them didn’t know each other before arriving there and being immediately plunged into a hectic schedule of working together to provide a homelike setting for 24 hurting children.

A few evenings ago we listened in as those young ladies, one of them our granddaughter, spent a half hour singing together after the children were asleep in bed. It was just a small reminder that in the midst of chaos the love of God can give peace and hope.