Chaotic & Competent

If you’ve ever looked remarkably competent while internally wondering what on earth you’re doing, welcome.

You’re the capable one — the organiser, the solver, the steady presence who keeps everyone else afloat but still manages to trip over your own feet. You love Jesus. You trust Him with your future. And yet, on an ordinary Tuesday, you still catch yourself believing your plan might be better than His.

In Chaotic & Competent, Anneliese Reeves shares stories that are equal parts hilarious, heartfelt, and painfully relatable. Through family mishaps, public embarrassments, hospital corridors, and holy moments, she peels back the armour we so often mistake for strength.

We become so good at carrying everything that we forget we were never meant to.

These stories will have you laughing at the chaos, recognising yourself in it, and quietly asking whether the competence everyone admires has become the very thing weighing you down. Because what protects you in one season can quietly confine you in another.

Chaotic & Competent isn’t about becoming less chaotic or more competent. It’s about loosening your grip, laying it all down, and discovering the freedom of living unarmoured.

About the author
Anneliese Reeves is a pastor, writer, and mother of five who has spent years juggling church life, family life, and the kind of everyday chaos that really should count as cardio. Known for her dry humour and unarmoured honesty, she speaks directly to people who are competent in meetings and chaotic in the car park; the ones raising families, leading teams, and quietly wrestling with their own armour. Anneliese and her husband Matt have been married for almost thirty years and live in Newcastle, Australia, where she is still learning, one ordinary Tuesday at a time, to loosen her grip and trust God a little more.