A Move Towards Simplicity

I just love the way the Lord confirms the stirrings He's put in our hearts. After my post "Simplicity or Sephora" a few weeks ago, I felt very compelled to do something specific regarding fostering simple living in our lives. I've had an extreme burden and desire to get rid of the clutter and excess to make room for new things the Lord might want to bring us. But let me be clear - I'm not talking about material things. The Lord has blessed us with so much and that abundance (mixed with a bit of stuff we've accumulated on our own) is just too much to manage. It takes time and energy and mind space. I feel He wants to bring us divine appointments and knowledge and we must create physical and spiritual "space" in our lives for those things. So I'm starting to clean house. More literally in the physical sense but also in the spiritual sense as well.

I've kept these things in my heart for the past month. Besides what I shared in that post, I've not really spoken to anyone about it. Not even my husband (and let's be honest, he doesn't really keep up with my blog). So you can imagine my surprise when he shared with me on Christmas that he felt the Lord saying we needed to be more "efficient and effective" in 2009 (thank you PD for our tendency towards alliteration!). I was so excited to know that God was impressing the same things upon his heart. I walked away from that conversation feeling like I really needed to do something drastic in order to keep myself accountable to this task. I have to admit, I felt (and still do feel) nervous about committing to anything specific but I believe it's time for me and for our household to get serious.

And then lastly, our pastor shared this past Sunday that he wanted to encourage us to "live lean" (there's that alliteration again) in 2009! Wow, what confirmation! I knew then that a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

So here I go . . . today I introduce to you "Project Simplicity 2009." Each week I plan to share one before and after project from our home where I get rid of clutter and excess. I plan to start small and work my way up to the big things. I will likely give items to Good Will or someone in our lives that could use some extra dishes or baby clothes. Hey, I might even get brave and try one of those crazy, mommy consignment sales and make a few bucks to contribute towards our family vacation. I'm not quite sure what it will look like exactly but the idea is to take baby steps towards a lean, efficient and simple life. I'm going to go ahead right now and say it might be hard to come up with 52 projects so I'm going to let myself off the hook right now and say perhaps it won't be every week, but I'm committed to giving it a try. And I will at least address the issue once a week even if I don't have a project to share.

My hope is that this will create a new way of living in our lives and perhaps encourage you in this way as well. We all really do have so much more then we need. What would our lives look like if we got rid of all the stuff and focused on what really matters? I'm hoping to find out!

Baby's First Christmas!

I pray you all had a wonderful and peaceful holiday. I cannot begin to tell you how much fun we had with Hope. If you have children or nieces or nephews or grandchildren, I'm sure you understand. I think she knew it was Christmas and that it meant family and presents and fun because she was in the best mood ever! Constantly laughing and playing. What a joy! Here are a few pics of our fun!

Prayer for Josiah

It is with great burden that I write this post. I should have written it a week or so ago but life got ahead of me. I'm embarrassed to say I couldn't find five minutes to ask for prayer for our friends who are hurting right now. Better late than never. The prayers are still needed.

Our friends and church family members Kara and Tony Zapata have just returned from North Carolina where they were with their little boy Josiah (2 1/2) and two other children. Kara went to NC to visit family and while there took Josiah into the emergency room. They were met with the horrible news that Josiah had a tumor on both lungs and one of his kidneys. He has been diagnosed with stage 4 Wilms' Tumor (tumors on his left kidney, on both lungs & his renal artery). The family returned home this weekend and Josiah will begin chemotherapy at Vandy this week. The doctors were pleased that the diagnosis was clear but there is still a long road to travel for sweet, little Josiah and his family.

Please pray that he would respond well to the chemo and receive complete and total healing. Please pray for strength for his small body and for his parents' hearts. I cannot even imagine the level of emotion they are experiencing right now yet they both seem so full of faith. What a testimony to what life can be like with the Lord . . . even in the really tough times.

I am believing that Josiah will be healed and that the Lord will receive amazing glory through this trial . . . both through the healing of his body and through the testimony of his parents' faith. They have already been such an example to me.

New Etsy Store

I wanted to let you all know about a new Esty store launched by my very talented friend and coworker, Jenny Stika. You can find her creations at http://justadreamart.etsy.com. I myself have many of Jenny's pieces in my collection including a beautiful, cuddly scarf, an oil painting and a chalk drawing of Hope (below). She is incredibly talented and I hope you can find some great, unique gifts for everyone on your list this year! She'll be adding more items in the coming weeks so check back for photographs and paintings!!

Happy Shopping!

Hope's First Snow!

So now I have something new to add to my list of things that make me full of joy and wonder during the holidays . . . a baby in the snow! Isn't she cute!!

Twinkle Lights and Tinkering Songs

I absolutely love the Christmas season. While I'm sure each of us has their own holiday preferences, mine consist mainly of twinkle lights and tinkering songs. I know what you are thinking. No, I'm not sure tinkering is a word, but it's the only "word" I can think of so hang with me. It will all make sense in a moment. . .

I was driving home from work last night, listening to the new lullaby Christmas album I picked up last week and being dangerously distracted by the large array of twinkle lights that adorn many of the houses along my route. There is just something lighthearted and magical about twinkle lights. I prefer the white ones, the icicle kind. They are like little drops of whimsy falling from the sky. So fun! And if the twinkle lights weren't enough to make this girl's heart leap with joy this season, I found a sweet, tinkering (there's that word again) Christmas lullaby record at Babies R Us the other day. My mom and I were shopping with Hope when the most adorable Christmas music started playing. All of your favorite Christmas songs on the xylophone or some cute, little instrument I can't spell.

You have to understand, I have really been into the xylophone and the glockenspiel since Hope was born. It all started when Dave found the Rockabye Baby Collection. When we brought Hope home from the hospital, we played the Coldplay version in the car and now I will forever have those little tinkering melodies in my heart and mind. So thus began my love affair with quirky German instruments.

But back to Christmas. . .I can't tell you how thrilled I was to find this CD. The songs are so simple and sweet. They really set the mood I am after during the holidays. Joy and wonder. And I suppose that's why I like the twinkle lights as well. Joy and wonder. That's not to say there isn't a place for the seriousness and mystery that say, Trans-Siberian Orchestra might bring to the table. There's definitely room for that and I've venture to guess my husband would take full-on Christmas rock and roll over my lullabies.

But as long as I'm in charge of the Christmas spirit in our house (I'll never officially be in charge of the music, but I can definitely influence), there will always be white twinkle lights and tinkering songs. The lightness and brightness of these things remind me of the joy we have in knowing Christ and the wonder we can experience through our relationship with Him. That's what I'm after this this season. What about you?

P.S. I've been trying to locate this CD online to post a link, but I'm not having any luck. As an alternative, I'd recommend Sufjan Stevens: Songs for Christmas if you are interested in tinkering songs. Not quite lullabies, but sweet and quirky for sure!

Simplicity or Sephora?

The other day I was in Sephora with a few girlfriends. As I was browsing through the sea of cosmetics, I quickly found myself overwhelmed and maybe even a little annoyed at the choices laid out in front of me. I went in to purchase an inexpensive yet very effective eyeliner but was bombarded by 58 other eyeliner options carrying empty promises for brighter eyes and much higher price tags.

And then for some reason my mind wandered to thoughts of Little House on the Prairie. Bear with me here, this is not quite as random as one might think. I was watching Little House for a few minutes the other day while home with my mom and Hope. We love Little House. It is wholesome and reminds us of when I was young. I kinda looked like Laura Ingles when I was little. But I digress. . .So I was walking through Sephora thinking about Little House and how times were much simpler then. Laura Ingles wasn't plagued with the pressure of making a decision between liquid or mineral makeup. No, Laura had much more important things to worry about like stuffing her dress with apples to make her bosoms look bigger. Ah, classic. I'll never forget the sight of those apples falling to the floor and rolling down the school room isle.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the simple life. Perhaps it's due to constant news headlines about our current economic state. Or perhaps it's because adding a baby and all that comes with it into your life and your home makes you want to throw everything away and live with one set of dishes and one set of sheets and one small set of clothes. Whatever the reason, I also know that the gloom and doom news reports are also making me a bit disgusted at our culture here in the USA. I realize that this economic downturn is not something to take lightly. Considering the tens of thousands of people who have lost their jobs, I take it very seriously and I pray that the Lord would provide abundantly for them. But then there are those of us who are simply living in fear because things don't look like they did 12 months ago. We can't own a big SUV anymore because gas got too high. We can't get a boob job because we didn't get that quarterly bonus (I've got three words for you . . . Laura Ingles' apples!) We can't shop at the high end supermarket for all organic food because it's just too expensive and we should save our pennies for when this thing really goes south. Blah, blah, blah. Maybe we weren't supposed to have those big, fat SUV's in the first place. Maybe we're not supposed to have 37 different mascara's to choose from. But this is the culture that the world has created. We've done this to ourselves and now I feel we need to take inventory and really prioritize in our lives.

I believe we've become so used to having stuff at our disposal that we are mistaking an opportunity to simplify as an economic downturn. We are more taken care of and richly blessed than any nation in the entire world. Yet we freak out when life happens and forces us to re-evaluate our spending and our priorities. We are now so used to choices we've let them dilute our convictions and our focus.

So I'm taking this downturn as an opportunity to take a look at my own life. Will I choose simplicity or Sephora? I know it will not be easy but I choose simplicity. Sure, there will need to be a huge paradigm shift in my thinking, but in the end I know the diligence of living with less will prepare me and my family for all that God has for us. As Christians we tend to think abundance refers to stuff. Although the Word promises us abundance, it also addresses where we need to store up our treasures. . .and it's not here on earth people!

Will you join with me in evaluating your own life? I'm not suggesting that anyone give up the things they enjoy or the blessings of their lives. No, I still plan to shop at Sephora . . . just with a different point of view. I will not be sucked in by all the choices, believing I should spend my money and try something new just because it's there. I will shop with greater restraint and discernment, obtaining only what I truly need . . . because I believe that when we can learn to live with less, we will end up having so much more.