This Waster of Time

I'm backing up the train a bit.


You see, I sat down to write a blog post today about waste and decided to check Facebook "real quick" before writing.  Nearly two hours later--no blog post, and my kids' quiet time was over.


I have a problem.


My lack of self control in this area is so completely inconsistent with the way I handle many other areas in my life, including other outlets of media.  I enjoyed taking a break from it all a couple of weeks ago during media week.  After media week I had decided to make Sundays Facebook-free.  


And I did.  


And then I gorged myself on it the very next day.


I'm thinking I've missed the point.


Yesterday, my friend spoke at church.  During her message she mentioned Brené Brown's statement that "We are the most in debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult cohort in U.S. history."  She also discussed how much advertising effects us, selling us something beyond the actual product offered.


In the back of my mind I thought (and even said to my husband), "I'm so glad we don't have TV in our house."  (We have a TV, just no channels which means no commercials.)  I sometimes think to myself how great it is that I'm not addicted to Soaps or other Daytime TV.  Isn't it great that I'm not like those other Americans?


And then there's the internet.


Ahem.  Yes, I remember the parable about the Pharisee praying "God thank you I do all these great things and that I'm not like him (the tax collector)." Meanwhile the tax collector is praying, "God be merciful to me."  (Luke 18:9-14)  And I remember the so often quoted plank-in-your-own-eye bit. (Matthew 7:1-5)


My friend read the passage from when a lawyer asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was and Jesus responded, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘ You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:35-40)  


Everything I do, feel, and think should be reflective of loving God. And I must love my neighbor as myself.  


When I waste time on things that don't really matter, I'm not really loving God, my neighbor, or myself.


I'm extending waste into this week to work on a few things I didn't finish last week and to include "time" by putting a boundary on those things that I allow to steal it.


I'm linking this one up under Media and Waste on our Summer of 7.  You're welcome to join in or just read what's going on at other blogs.  Just don't stay too long... ;).

Who cares about the earth anyway?

When Jen Hatmaker mentions in 7 the Christian shirt she wore growing up in the Bible belt of America, it brought back memories of my own experiences growing up.  I am embarrassed to admit that I bought and proudly wore a T-shirt which read “Save Forget the Whales, Save the People.”  Believe it or not, somewhere I had gotten the distinct impression that environmentalism and Christianity were two irreconcilable and opposing forces.  (On a side note, that T-shirt got some remarks from non-Christians at my school.  Surprise of all surprises, they weren’t asking to go to church with me on Sunday.)

My journey in becoming “more green” started a several years ago while reading The Tightwad Gazette.  Amy Dacyczyn that environmental efforts and frugalness often go hand in hand—that being resourceful and reusing is actually quite helpful to the environment, (maybe even more so than running out and purchasing all the “green” products now advertised…)

Reading this book started the wheels turning in my mind and led me to think about replacing paper products in our home to save money and cut down on our wastefulness.   (I’ll share specifics in a later post.)  I started researching alternatives to paper towels, napkins, etc, and came across a blog written by a Christian lady who, from what I could tell by reading, really loves Jesus and is also environmentally conscious.  Shocking.  This discovery caused me to start to think about whether or not Christianity and environmentalism in and of themselves really were at odds with each other.

And here is where I landed:

God created this Earth and all of its living creatures.  God put man in charge of the earth and its living creatures.  And while I do not believe putting the earth or its creatures in a place of worship (above God or people), I also feel that many Christians have missed the mark when it comes to being good stewards of what God has created.  To be perfectly blunt, wastefulness, squandering, and inhumane living conditions for animals are not Biblical values.  However, being faithful with what one’s been given, responsibility, servant leadership, and compassion are valued in scripture.  Proverbs 12:10 even tells us that a righteous man takes care of his animals.

Which leaves me with the following questions:

Why is it that we would be outraged if a house guest wasted our food and money, trashed and dirtied our home and broke our possessions, yet we feel as if we have no responsibility whatsoever to properly care for and manage the home God made for us?  Why would anyone else want to follow a God whose followers squander the world that they claim He made with absolutely no regard for how their actions affect others?

Regardless of how others may have turned environmentalism into a religion in and of itself, as a Christ-follower, indifference and apathy just don’t cut it with respect to wastefulness.   God cares how we use what He's given us.

Facebook and "The Deception" Re-post

So I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks. Moving turned out to be all-consuming (big surprise), and I just needed a week of to settle into the new "normal."


And last week was media week.


We spent the entire week in New Hampshire at a Bed and Breakfast on a sustainably managed farm. Be still my beating heart.  It was wonderful.  (I have so much to say about this trip, but later.) And guess what was nowhere in sight? A TV and a computer (although my husband  did bring his I-pad and I had my I-phone which I barely used).  Glorious!!!  I mean, why would you even want to ruin such a vacation with media?

Part of the view of the farm from the Inn

To be truthful, I am not an avid TV-watcher, however, I can waste hours of my life on the computer reading blogs, "researching," and Facebooking. 


Therein lies the problem.  Not only do I allow the internet to suck my time away searching out things that I actually should be doing something about, I easily fall into the trap of comparison: A) All of my friends are having fun without me;  B) More people like her than me; or even C) More people read his/her blog than mine, I must not be good enough.  (Shocking, I know.) A break from the monster that is the Internet and the internal dialogue in my head was definitely a good thing.  


The conclusion I have come to is that my Internet time definitely needs some boundaries so that it does not morph into a twisted addiction.  In the spirit of waste week, which for me started yesterday, I'm going to "recycle" my original blog post which speaks to these heart issues. :)



The Deception


It's Easter.  The girls are dressing and getting their hair curled. I reach for my hair dryer to straighten out mine and realize the irony of it all--blowing hair straight only to curl it again in less-natural curls.  Trading my God-given curls my own daughters long to have. 

I think of my brown-eyed, brunette daughters wishing for golden locks, while my blue-eyed blond daughter covets the formers’ dark tresses. I remember my own childhood longing to look and be like someone else.  We are experts at disvaluing our own beauty and talents.  What we have is not enough.  It’s the same lie man has fallen for time and time again.  God is holding out on us.

“Love does not want what belongs to others.”

The Scripture from Corinthians read at our dining room table just last night echos in my mind.

And then the lie goes deeper.  Who we are is not enough—not pretty enough, not smart enough, not funny enough, not kind enough, not brave enough, not lovable enough.  We are hopeless failures.

On the surface this lie appears to be a lack of self-confidence—a bought of self-depreciation that can be solved with a self pep-talk or the like.  Yet this lie goes deeper.  It is a rejection of the God who created us.  It is an unwillingness to trust our Maker with who He has created us to be.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

I pause and return the hair dryer to the drawer.  Today I choose to embrace the curls God’s given me—to be comfortable in my own skin. I open my hands to let go of the striving to be like someone else and to be at peace in who God has created me to be.


A mere two days passed.  


That voice whispered in my ear again.  The one that says I'm not enough and no one likes me.  That feeling of being on the outside of the circle slithered its way into my heart—such an old familiar self-loathing codependent friend.

I know better than to listen, but struggle to overcome the thoughts.   These demons have haunted me since I was a child.  I remember thinking in elementary school that everyone liked my best friend and not me.  When I finally confessed my fears to her one day, she responded that she thought everyone liked me and not her.   The house of cards fell that day, but the seed of deception still remains.  It creeps in like a weed, and I have to root it out again and again.

These lies are barely affected by recalling mere facts such as the realization that just last week I had a girls night with some friends.  Or that I just spent Easter with all my family.  Or that my husband and kids love me dearly.  Nor does reciting a list of friends help.

In the midst of my battle the scripture flashed in the back of my mind again.

Love does not want what belongs to others. 

Oh, but I don’t want what belongs to others.  They can keep their cars and houses and clothes.  I don’t care about all of that.  I just envy their giftings.  And their friendships.  And their…  ouch.

 And then the Father gently questions,

“What if you really are alone and unloved by others?  Am I enough for you?”

Oh. Ummm, good question.

“Why are you looking for others approval to fill you?” 

I don’t have an answer.  At least not a good one.

And then He reminds me—again—that He has created me to be me and no one else.  He tells me that He needs me to use the gifts that He has given me because that’s my part to play.  He asks me if I trust Him with the cup He has given me—if I trust Him with my story.

The danger in the lies is that my reaction is to want to run and hide. To bury what I’ve been given for fear of hurt and rejection.  It seems easier to be a carbon copy or two-dimensional rather than risk going deep.  Like the man of the parable who buried his talents, I too want to shrink back in fear, and bury my gifts deep in the sand.

And there it is. The sin of self-preservation.  When Jesus said whoever wants to follow me should deny himself and pick up his cross. 

So denying myself looks like taking my eyes off myself and watching Jesus, listening to what the Father’s story is for me.  It means thinking about reaching out to others instead of worrying what they think of me.  It means I trust God with His timing and don’t become anxious when it’s not the same as others.  I must shift my focus from myself and allow God to tell me my story.

Purging

This will be my fourth move since 2007. I realized this the other night before drifting off to sleep.  In these last five years I have, moved, provided home daycare, separated, went back to work as a teacher, divorced, moved to an apartment, met my husband, married, moved, and joined two families, quit teaching, and now am packing to move once again.

This is not just a purging week for me. It has been a purging month.  I have made at least four trips to the Goodwill, and I have another pile next to the door.

Make no mistake about it, I am a purger by nature and actually am thrilled to regularly look through my closets, bookshelves, and other hiding places to rid myself of items no longer cherished or needed.  But this purging is a little different.  Because after you finish the initial sweep to eradicate unwanted items and pack a box or two, you realize that there is actually more stuff still lurking, some of it awkwardly shaped items that you have no idea how to pack, some of it items belonging to your husband of uncertain identity and usefulness.  Just when you think you are finished, something else creeps up that must be dealt with properly.

It is somewhat like that point in time when you stop just being angry at someone else and start to deal with your own “stuff” that has put you in a difficult place to begin with.  Layer upon layer of hurts and lies-believed-truths must be faced and dealt with.  It’s when your spouse or friend says or does something that triggers the wound-buried-deep-thought-forgiven-and-forgotten.  “Oh, you’re still there?”  And it takes a great deal of perseverance to continue to address the issues and hurts that arise as you walk through life because it’s really easier just to fill the time with something else—anything, really, that will keep you from having to actually deal with what is inside you.

We pack this “stuff” deep into the hiding places of our hearts, so it will never see the light of day.  But light is exactly what it needs to see.  To see the light of God’s healing Truth which robs the lie of any power it once held.  Lain at the feet of Jesus, our insecurities, fears, and sins don’t matter.  We can give them away to one who washes us clean and heals our brokenness.

What lies have you held on to as if they were treasures?  What have you packed away in your heart instead of God’s Truth?  Listen to the song below and take these questions to Him.

Clothing and Insufficiency

Let me tell you that wearing only seven clothes for seven days was not a huge deal for me.  I liked not thinking about what I should wear and having very little laundry.  When I picked out my clothes from the rest of my closet this morning for the first time in a week, I almost felt disappointed that I needed to take the time to decide what I was going to wear. True story.  


When I was in college, we used to watch people (mainly girls) walk by and joke about what their major could be based on the their attire.  For example, a button-down blouse tucked in to a straight black skirt was most likely a business major, however, a long flowing earthy or jean skirt with a T-shirt and no make-up was probably a missions major.  Sounds awful and judgmental, but in truth we didn't mean any harm by it.  We were just 20-year-olds a bit full of ourselves with too much time on our hands between classes.


I'm letting you in on this little dark secret of my past to help you understand me when I say that I fall in between these two aforementioned categories.  I don't really want to look like a missions major (at least not most of the time), but I don't actually care enough to want to look as polished as a business major all of the time either.  Maybe this could be explained by the fact that I was actually a business major interested in missions who ended up becoming a bilingual education teacher after college.  I have the makings of a fashion identity crisis, people, somewhere in between not caring at all and extremely polished and put-together.


Despite (or maybe because of) my mostly nonchalant fashion perspective, I still had clothes lurking in my closet that I a) never wear b) don't like or c) shouldn't wear because it's too worn out.  It's so easy to tell my husband that shirt looks hideous, you need to get rid of it, yet not always so easy to motivate myself to do the same.  I'm envious of Bea at Zero Waste Home with her paired-down wardrobe.  I don't know that I could get mine quite that small, but I have done some purging this week (again) and have come up with a basic guideline:


7 tank tops (I live in Texas, people.)
7 short-sleeved tops
7 long-sleeved shirts
7 dress pants
2-3 sweaters
3-4 jackets
7 dresses
7 shorts/skirts/capris
5 work-out outfits
3 T-shirts
2 pairs pajamas per season


I actually have one or two more in a few of those areas, and I don't plan to get rid of the extra unless I don't wear them or they wear out.  The numbers are more-so a basic guideline to help me know when to say, "Enough."  When I think, "I have nothing to wear." I can take a hard look at what is actually in my closet and say, "No, I have enough," or, "Yes, I need to replace some things."


There is one little problem with this plan: I have had this basic wardrobe plan in the back of my mind for a while.  But then something happens walking through a store when I see CLEARANCE in red.  Especially when it's children's clothing.  The kids might need clothes so they're not running around half-dressed or naked.  (I have actually muttered in my head while walking through Target, "Curse you, Target and your inexpensive and cute but irresponsibly manufactured clothing," while avoiding said clearance racks.  More on this to come during spending week.)


This is a hard habit to break.  Because it's tied to fear.  Fear that if I don't buy the clothes now when they're on sale, I might not have enough to buy the clothes later when we need them.  Or, even worse and more of a reality for me, I might have to buy us clothes at full-price, and I will have completely failed in my responsibility as a mother to stretch our dollars for every penny they're worth.   You see, it's really all about me and my insufficiency and inadequacy as a mother.


Wow.


Which is why I need to hear the Father's voice saying, "I am your sufficiency."  And why I need to lay down my striving to be considered "enough" and allow Him to be "more than enough."


To put practicality to walking that out, I also feel like I need a boundary. Starting now, we're only buying clothes twice a year: October or November for fall and March or April for spring/summer with a couple of items for stockings/presents at Christmas.  Not to begin this with a whole list of caveats, but if a REAL need arises in between or the kids need a shirt for school or activities in between shopping I am not going to be the clothes Nazi. (Maybe I should recite that phrase over and over in my head.)

Harder than I thought

After much deliberation, I have narrowed my wardrobe down to seven clothes for the week.  (Wondering what I'm doing? Read this and/or this.  Wondering why I'm doing this?  Amy Bennett at Permission to Peruse explains it well here.)


Here is my list in no particular order:


One tan tank top
One pair of blue shorts
One pair of work out shirts
One gray T-shirt
Green sundress
Sandals
Tennis Shoes


My initial thought was to go for mix and match, but then realized there isn't a whole lot of mix-and-matching to be done with seven items--especially when workout clothes take up three of those items.  However, since I am counting my workout clothes, I've decided not to count my bathing suit should we go swimming this week.  It's really more like underwear which also doesn't count, right?


I also considered leaving the sandals out and going barefoot when I didn't want to wear tennis shoes, but I have a couple of things this week that I need to look somewhat presentable for (hence the sundress) and I don't want to wear my pink and neon green work out shoes to those appointments.  All of this to say I thought this would be easier as I am not a fashonista.


During this week I am also going to be purging our clothes closets, again, and my dresser drawers which always seem to get overlooked.  I have some other long-term ideas regarding wardrobes floating around in my head, but I think I will save those for the wrap-up post at the end of this week.


For now, I will tell you that I am wondering what my hubby's reaction will be if I ask him to choose seven of his favorite T-shirts and get rid of the rest...

Giving it up

I almost had a break down over food Tuesday night.  It came out in our dinner conversation that Ben had taken two of children who were already finished with school out to lunch. Which really isn't a big deal in and of itself.  Except that this past weekend we went to the grocery store and bought 3 pounds of lunch meat (which we rarely buy) and other items to feed our family lunch, and when I balked at the amount of meat he was buying he said that he would eat it this week because he would be home with the girls.  Plus, we had plenty of leftovers and other food in the fridge.  And he just took them out to eat the day before.


I wanted to let it go. But it really bothered me.  Because just a month or so ago he told me we needed to watch our spending because we are buying a house this month.  My little brain flew into survival mode--no spending on anything unless absolutely necessary and avoid eating out as much as possible.  The two days in a row of eating out were more than I could handle.  I'm also going to blame it on the fact that I went to Target twice last weekend and even Wal-mart the night before, two stores I try to avoid like the plague, especially the latter.


Lest you misunderstand me and think that I am bashing my dear sweet husband, let me explain that he is a very caring man who is actually conscientious of his spending and is extremely supportive and even on the same page with me 99.9 percent of the time in all of my glorious craziness.  And lest I come across as a saint and completely innocent in this account, I myself ate out with my girlfriends Wednesday night and then again with others Thursday for lunch.  But it's okay when I decide to eat out, and I don't need anyone to question my choices, thank you very much.  


Hello, my name is Alison, and I'm a hypocritical control freak. (Sorry, Ben.)


Anyhow... as Ben and I discussed the situation after dinner with myself on the verge of tears (dramatic, I know), I discovered two things.  First off, we had a slight communication issue on what "watching our spending" means.  Second, as we are trying to understand each other (because we have had the conversation on eating out for lunch before, and it completely mystifies me why he will go to get a sandwich from Subway when there are leftovers in the fridge), I came to the realization that I think about food. all. the. time.


What are we going to eat for dinner this week?


What am I going to feed the kids for snack?


Have the kids packed their lunch for school?


What am I going to pack for school?


What am I going to fix for breakfast?


Do we need to take a snack or a water bottle?


It seems that as soon as one meal is finished I'm thinking and planning the next.  In my defense I get really, really cranky when I'm hungry, and so do my kids.  Maybe this is a normal mom-thing.  From birth your primary responsibility is feeding your child. every. two. to. three. hours.


But then again maybe I go overboard and get a little OCD on this one.  And doesn't this sound a lot like my post from a couple of weeks ago???  Which leads me to believe I still need to address some things in the food department.


Going through this first week of the Summer of Seven, I've decided that I want to focus on each item for a week as planned, but then also have a take-away to either continue or start for a specific period of time.  This is my plan to try to undo some of this mess inside me:


I'm not writing a menu plan for the next week.  As a general rule, I'm only going to think about the food that is needed for today.  


I'm not making a big weekly trip to the store for the rest of the month with perfectly-planned-out grocery list in hand.  Instead we will base our meals off of what's in the pantry and fill in any gaps as needed on a daily basis. We will continue our bi-weekly produce coop and milk/egg run. (To be honest with you, this one is partly motivated by our upcoming move. Nevertheless, not having a detailed plan for groceries is a definite challenge for me.)


We will give generously and lovingly to those who do not have enough to eat as part of the way we do life.


Finally, I'm giving up worrying about food.  Easier said than done.  However, when I feel myself going down that path, I'm going to give it to God and ask Him to change my heart.