Reading is hugely important. It is therapy (think chocolate) and growth. On days when it just seems like the dishes never go away or I am only around for clean up and drinks of water, they are my escape.
Want to join me? Textual chocolate all around.
The trouble with book clubs is that we are all different. We may be interested in reading some books or not others or have access to some books and not others.
So here is what I am proposing. I will let you know what I have read in the past month that I would recommend AND I will let you know what I am planning on reading this coming month.
You are welcome to join me with the books I am reading and let me know what you think at the end of November, or you can recommend books you have recently read, or you can let me know what is on your reading list for this month.
Reading is just important, and it is more fun to do it with others.
For this post I wanted to get pictures of our feet representing how we need to focus on where we are at presently. I love these shoes of Lily’s. It was cold and getting dark so she wouldn’t take off her socks like I wanted.
I am excited to write this post. This is something that God has probably been trying to teach me for years, but it is only now that I am really ready to understand and rest in it.
I want to work for God. I want to make a difference in my world. I have spent most of my adult life trying to figure out how I can achieve this. As a family we have looked at lots of mission calls, and lots of ‘mission’ jobs here at home. I read about people helping orphans or doing relief work and I want to be part of it.
My boy will take off his shoes and socks and play in the grass no matter how cold it is outside
For all these years it has never worked out. I am ok with that and assume God has something else we are supposed to do, but I am always looking, always wanting the ‘change’ to ‘true’ service for God. I completely understand that my family and my kids are my ministry, but there is so much pain and hurt in the world I want to try and help.
The problem with always looking for ‘the call’ is that I am living in the future. I am focused on what I could do, or what I might be called to do, and everything I am doing now has just been a time filler till something else.
What I have discovered is that this is dangerous for both my sanity and simplicity, as well as my position and relationship with God.
My husband never takes off his shoes, here he is standing on the slide at the park. Thanks for playing along baby!
A common saying in our culture is ‘Don’t just stand there, do something’. God however calls us to ‘Don’t just do something, stand there and focus on me’
We try so hard to work for God that we don’t have a chance to know God. And, if we don’t know Him, how can we really know what He wants us to do?
We learn about God, and we grow to want to serve Him, but all to often, we jump from one to the other without getting to know Him in the middle. Once we fill our life with lots of ‘good-God-work’ we don’t have the time to ‘Be still, and know that I am God’ Ps 46:10
Here are my feet with my home-done toes. I love red! Usually looks better from a distance… up close they look pretty messy.
So What Does It All Mean?
Our society has us living in the future… when I get past this busy time at work…. after the kids get potty trained…. after I get at least one good night sleep…. when I am finally out of debt…., and I was taking the same problem to my spiritual life.
We have to live in the present. Live in the present with our kids, our finances, our life, and our God. It is a simple law of biology and physics, there is only mental energy and time for the present.
God wants my worship and service today, maybe just this hour or this minute. It isn’t that we shouldn’t wish to make a difference for Him, it is that we need to focus on what He wants us to do now.
Hey, wanted to do an update on how our apartment simplified living is going. If this is the first time you are stopping by the website allow me to fill you in. This spring we sold most everything, rented out our house, and moved into a 2 bedroom apartment because we wanted to live simple (or simpler). The process of getting rid of stuff has continued all summer as well so now we have no trouble at all fitting into our small space.
What I have learned in the last few months living in an apartment:
There is no hidden rooms (to stash stuff or put of cleaning)…. when guests come over they can see into almost every room stepping a few feet from the entry way in each direction.
Every room has to be kid friendly… including my bedroom… the kids (and their friends) get into everything that isn’t on the top shelf of my closet. Our previous house had several rooms the kids wouldn’t go into.
My children are loud
I haven’t missed having a yard or garden to take care of once this summer.
It takes about a half an hour to clean, but I still procrastinate the job.
I have to stop buying food in bulk.
As crazy as the idea was, and as crazy as I felt selling and moving, I am so glad we had the guts to do it.
Stealing my husband’s picture, we are on our simplicity path. This is a road we drove in Kings Canyon, CA this summer. Not a lot of people travel this road and it is impossible with a large vehicle (a.k.a a lot of stuff). Seems crazy and dangerous, but it is beautiful. It curves around into the unknown, but we are traveling as a family and excited about the adventure ahead. It was at the end of this road that we found a waterfall to play in and it was one of the highlights of our whole trip.
It also represents the fact that we still have a long way to go. The easy part was the tangible, the material. The hard part is simplifying my life and head and really learning to trust and follow God instead of society, others, or my own ideas.
I wanted to also share a tip I have figured out with ‘simple’ storage. My husband made me this bed frame a couple of years ago because I wanted to have the sides painted to match the colors of the room. I never used the space. Now however, these few 1 x 8′s store over 3 large tubs full of our seasonal cloths (and the cloths I have bought ahead for the kids). As you can see, I am not really neat…. I should have folded all the cloths, but I didn’t. They are sorted by person, one row for each ofthe 4 of us and one extra row for snow gear.
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