I was recently listening to a podcast about marriage and relationships and a phrase they mentioned stuck with me. They said, “a lot of young couples are living without a lot of margin in their lives.” Their point was that the lack of margin eventually causes anxiety and can break down the relationship. Yikes, that sounds scary.
I’ve been thinking about all the areas we can and need to make edits in our life. One such area is the girls toys! We’ve been super blessed and haven’t really bought the girls very much. Thank you church grandma! So their toys aren’t really a budget issue but a clutter issue. Sometimes they find a toy they haven’t seen in a while because it’s at the bottom of the big wicker toy basket and it’s like Christmas over here. I’ve pulled a purple bin in from the garage to pack away some and plan to switch them out periodically. It will be like Christmas once a month! The point is sometimes excess actually causes more stress.
We live in a culture that is all about MORE. We’ve bought the lie that there is never enough. While the Bible clearly states that “those who fear Him lack no good thing.” And I think what happens is before we know it, life has gotten cluttered and the things we thought were a blessing are actually causing stress.
Have you ever gotten that “storage is almost full” notification on your iPhone? It usually pops up right about the time that the girls do something adorable and I want to capture the moment. And you know what, for me it’s not a storage issue. It’s an editing issue. I need to EDIT and I need to DELETE. I don’t really need to save a picture of last nights dinner or this mornings latte. I don’t really need thousands of old text messages. My top storage snatcher is text messages.
I remember when I had 30 text messages a month on my phone plan. I am pretty sure now my texts exceed 30 a day, sometimes an hour now! I read an article recently about a girl who went back to a flip phone and the freedom she felt. I am not sure if I can go to this extreme because of my job and group texts, but I am without a doubt about to start editing my life. It feels both scary and liberating.
I want to live with intention and not reaction. I want to spend my days looking into my family’s eyes not scrolling through pictures of someone elses’.
I am making a list of some of my edits today, so that tomorrow is a little less cluttered. I know the areas the Holy Spirit is putting His finger on in my life and I am going to capitalize on the grace He has for me to make those cuts. We are given a limited amount of resources (time, money, energy etc) each day, so sometimes that means removing one thing so we can add another. Some practical examples for me are –
More vegetables less sugar…
More saving less spending…
More writing less scrolling…
More reading less watching tv…
I want to live with simplicity and purpose.
Are there any areas in your life that are causing anxiety that couple be remedied by some editing?
Let’s free those up and live free!
Much love,
Anna
“But godliness with contentment is great gain.”
1 Timothy 6:6
