I recently had a conversation with a friend about some books that I’ve been mulling over in my head. I’ve not read any of them, but I’ve read enough about them to get the idea. Honestly, I think part of me is scared to read them bc of the life it is going to challenge me with. So, I’m like a little kid running my chubby little, copper toned toes through the edge of the swimming pool. I really want to go in, but it might just be too cold!
Here are the thoughts I shared with her and as I’ve mulled over them, I think I want to share them with you too!
Thousand Gifts – this is the one that has the iphone app – also, here’s a link
to the JOY Dare that’s affiliated with it.
– the website for the lady who wrote One Thousand Gifts (the music alone is
worth going to the website – I have it come to my Google reader so I forget how
calming it is!)
Place at the Table – I’ve not read this one, but I’ve heard great
things. His movement on the Advent Conspiracy really changed some
serious thinking for me in December and the way my family looks at Christmas.
something – I’ve obviously not gone full force into any of this. (I mean, I
have 3 closets at my house full of clothes) It’s not like I pick and
choose the easy parts, but I think it’s all more about adopting the idea of
accomplishing more with what you have. I feel guilty about having a
pantry that’s full to over-flowing. Sometimes I compulsively buy things
that I don’t need bc I want them and that’s why my cupboards look like they
do. I don’t think its emotionally healthy. I find myself sometimes
coming back to this place needing healing where I realize that I was covering
up loneliness, and other insecurities with food and while yes that meant
weight, it meant more of a heavy “cabinet”. That weight was worse.
For me, part of this is the healing of taking that bad time, that bad place and
using it for my healing. There are things I’ve had to throw out and more
things that will be right behind it. I hate throwing food away when I
know there are people around the world starving (I catch myself wondering if I
had donated that money instead of feeding my impulsive shopping). And,
that’s the place that all this comes from for me. Right now, it’s an
emotionally healthy moment and that’s why it feels extreme, but I will hit a
low and I’m sure that will come from opening my pantry and seeing an empty
shelf and somehow personally affiliating myself with that.
something. I don’t compare myself to them, I can’t. It’s not
healthy and I realize that they are just in a different place from me. I
mean Ann has 7 kids that she home schools. She lives on a farm in the
middle of nowhere and makes everything. She is gorgeous and has a hot,
farming husband who “does” life with her. That is not my life. That
works for them, but it doesn’t for me. I’m a modern, 21st
century, single, young professional who doesn’t have kids or the prospective of
a man. I’m ok with that. But, I have to keep all those things in
mind when I read these stories and let my convictions come over me. I may
be moved, but moved differently than them.
to get rid of the emotional “clinging” I want to do to things. They don’t
really make me feel better, but I think they do. They are baggage, weighing
me down and making me wait for “someday”. It’s not healthy and these are
some of the tools that for the first time don’t make me feel bad about myself,
but empowered to at least freely think about what I can do in my world.
How I can adopt some of these schools of thought and make them work for me and
the convictions that God has placed on my life. Not convictions that
other people have placed on me.
That’s way more than you asked for, but I really think its
easy to read these and be overwhelmed by how amazing these godly, Christian
women seem and compare ourselves to them. I’m grateful that they’ve
chosen to articulate their feelings and personal processes in a way to
challenge us, but I think it has to be that. Not a measurement tool that
we grade ourselves on whether we are as holy as they are, but to use their
words as portions of encouragement. So often, that’s not the case but I
really believe at the heart of these books and “movements” is a challenge to
just be better, live with less, and do more with what we have – time,
resources, family, passions, skill sets, etc.
gentle nudges in the right direction of become better and essentially becoming
more.
