Spiritual Truths for our Hearts & Homes - Negative Space

Our lives move at lightning speed.

We fly through childhood, school, marriage and starting a family. If we are not careful those days turn into years and the years well they zip by and before we know it, the kids have moved out and moved on and have started families of their own.

Life moves fast and even faster because we have filled it with so many things.

So many activities, so many good things too - not bad choices, just blocks of time on the calendar that we can’t get back. Negative space is design is the idea that less is more. Allowing room in the decor so that every open space isn’t maxed out with stuff. Having negative space in my schedule means allowing space for those life moments that you can’t plan or script out. They are the impromptu cookie baking, movie watching, sofa chatting moments that occur when life slows down a little and there’s nowhere to be or anything to do.

Instead of rare tidbits, planning with intention means leaving room in our home decor for some white space, but it also means being ruthless with eliminating anything - even the pretty things - that threaten to consume the white space. Doing this with our schedules as well means that we save time for the downtime.

Now as a girl who loves to schedule and plan and who even blocks out her day by 15 minute segments, you have to know that its so easy for me to fill in every time block with something to do. But I’m learning to make some blocks. Marking the blocks off and allowing for some open space for either life’s hiccups, or helping people is important. If people are going to be my priority I need to be sure that there’s margin already planned for them.

How about you - do you struggle with creating room in your schedule?

Wednesday Spiritual Truths for our Hearts & Homes

Acts 2:46-47

Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

The early church had much different view of their possessions then our current American culture does today.

Without denigrating our society today, I want to encourage instead a fresh look at our homes and possession today.  I think getting a new perspective is healthy and always being reminded that the things we own today could all be gone tomorrow. We are not assured of owning things and spaces forever, because we are not even assured of our next breath. Rather we are to hold all things loosely understanding that we have the things we do because of His gracious gifts to us.

This is why I believe our homes should be places that are useful.

Useful, not just to us, or our family or even church and friends, but also to extend to our neighbors and even strangers.  The busier our culture becomes, the more difficult this idea is. And honestly, I get it. We have three of our own kids and they each have had various activities through the years. I know how crazy life is and so I speak from experience and understanding. This concept is so hard to wrap our heads around. 

How do we create the margin in our lives to be able to even consider being intentional to develop a home that is open and inviting to others?

The first step is really stopping the crazy train on our schedules. Years ago we had to tell the kids we were limiting activities.  I know don’t throw stuff at me. But here’s the thing..we have three kids, even when we tried to limit them to one thing each, we were still on the go constantly.  Before we homeschooled, I promise you we had zero extra time. We barely had time together especially since we had jobs too.

 Stepping back and assessing what we are doing and why is important. I think we have to be honest and at times make choices about how busy we really want to be.  Because busyness becomes the enemy of connecting with people – our people, and other people. And God loves people. If we are here to love God and love others, we have to assess how we are doing on this journey. Perhaps as we look at how we are doing with this one objective we can then move forward with decisions about how we really want to live our lives. The thing I know to be true is that many times, I find myself often wondering where time actually goes. The reason this occurs is because of busyness and just trying to get through the day. Before you know it, the days turn to weeks and the weeks turn to months and man the months become years and we have been in survival mode.

I have often found that this reflection has caused me to make changes and specifically in the last few years, I have been focused on creating space in my life for people. Using my home as a natural connection point for people is my goal, and I am constantly reevaluating my schedule to be sure I am keeping my goal in mind.

Jesus loved people, and if I am going to reflect Jesus to others I must love people too. Showing love might mean different things at different times, but I’m sure it often means bringing people into my space. Sometimes that means bringing them into our messes, but mostly it means being comfortable with the role Christ calls us too and utilizing all the blessings He has given us.

Wednesday Spiritual Truths for our Hearts & Homes

The Pursuit of Balance

Let all things be done decently and in order. I Cor. 14:40

You won’t need to have too many conversations with people today to find that many of us feel overworked, under-rested, and to be completely honest, extremely stressed out.

The relentless struggle to do all the things required by our commitments to our jobs and our families, inevitably leads us to take inadequate time to care for ourselves. As a perfectionist, the words of I Corinthians above might lead me to feel even more pressure and work to be done. Let’s be fair, things can always be done better. But rather what I see in the verse above is that we must learn instead to take own the tasks only we are to do. Achieving a sense of balance in our lives comes from learning to say no and becoming laser focused on the task God has called each of us to.

If you are feeling out of balance today, I’d like to encourage you to take a step back, assess and analyze where that stress is coming from and then make adjustments if necessary to dial back your work load to only the things that He has called you to do. If there are no adjustments to be made, as is sometimes the case, then resting in the provision of His grace and strength will be what you must do as you navigate a busy season. Sometimes there is a sense of order restored in these busy times, just by acknowledging that He is in charge of it all and will help you through it. Knowing there is an end to the busy season eventually is also incredibly beneficial!