“From heresy, frenzy and jealousy, good Lord deliver me.”
— Ludovico Ariosto

Some days are full of frenzy and quick turns of direction and focus. The only thing to do in such chaos is to prioritize the essential and timeless, and fend off the urgent but unimportant as best we can. Easier said than done. But we were made for this by all that brought us here. Overwhelm is simply letting the madness wash over us. We must see the storm and swim to calmer waters as soon as possible or risk drowning.

Deliverance takes many forms. Sometimes circumstances arise that pull the storm away from us. The pending loss a loved one shakes us loose from focusing on the frenzy long enough to show that deliverance was in a completely different direction than we believed. A conversation with a trusted friend or mentor may shift our perspective just enough to find salvation. Sometimes just walking in the garden can remind us to tend to the more essential in the moment, and let the noise drift away without dragging us along.

We ought to remember the lessons from moments such as these. What we focus on is not always our deliverance, but the storm itself. When we focus on the wave about to break over our heads we aren’t focusing on the lifeline just in front of us. We tend to realize what we focus on. In our craziest days, we must seek out stillness, even if it’s a deep breath before moving on to the next wave. There may be a calm after this storm too, but we only reach it if we keep our heads about us when we’re deep in the midst of the tempest.