Leaving Room (Part 2)

In the last article, we talked about how we have to say no not only to things outside the home but also to some productivity in the home if we want to keep chronic franticness at bay. As Americans and as Christians with a solid work ethic based on the concept of ‘if you don’t work, you don’t eat’ it can be easy for us to lose sight of the idea of leaving room in our lives.

Leaving room for play, exploration, creativity, and service, not to mention the Lord’s Day, is vital for us, our homes, people, communities, and church membership.

If every moment of our lives is jammed packed with running here, running there, do this, do this, do this, we will miss tiny, yet important things. We will miss a non-frantic hug from our man. We’ll miss monarchs fluttering through our backyard, caterpillars, baby birds learning to fly, and rainbows. We’ll miss breathing and a calm and steady life. We’ll also miss big things like giving our children room to play and discover what they like (boredom can be a good catalyst for growth). We’ll miss important talks with parents or teens or husbands. We’ll miss opportunities to mentor and encourage. We’ll miss opportunities to serve. We’ll be so busy our deacons will be forced to carry a huge weight, as more things need doing than a whole army of them can get to. We’ll miss those who need meals, help with their homes, or even simply prayer.

To be available to help means we must leave space in our lives.

Laziness: We don’t use the idea of leaving room as an excuse for being lazy. I’m not suggesting you plop on the couch in the middle of the day and eat bonbons while waiting on the Lord to drop a need or a caterpillar in your lap. We must be diligent in our homes, childrearing, and church membership. But diligence isn’t the same as being busy all the time. If we have every moment dedicated to something and our schedules are so tight that we aren’t available, this isn’t being diligent. It’s probably some fear, anxiety, or pride.

Non-Planners vs. Planners: One would think those of us less prone to calendars and to-do lists would have an easier time leaving room in our lives. But non-planners easily over-fill their schedules because they either hyper-focus when it’s a bad time, say yes to everything, always play catch-up, or constantly throw off the family routine by going and doing. The battle here is to be aware and to manage the yeses and noes so you can say yes appropriately. Planners easily over-fill their list because they are driven to put more things on the list. Non-planners overload the day like scatter shot. Don’t think that just because you’re not a scheduler you’re safe from chronic franticness. Don’t think that just because you can make a real sweet to-do list, you’re leaving room. Leaving room means unscheduled things.

Suggested Practical Steps

(Add your own ideas to this list. You know yourself, your home, and your family better than anyone else. This is just to get the ball rolling around in your head.)

·         Don’t say yes to everything inside and outside the home. Pick and choose, be selective, and set priorities. The goal is to have some room for things that pop up.

·         Don’t try to give your children or yourself every experience in the world, or even all your kids at once. Not everyone has to have something going on all the time. Maybe this year one kid plays baseball and the rest cheer the team on. Next year a different kid gets to take piano or art. Spread things out, give them, or yourself a taste, not the whole shebang.

·         Don’t immediately get a job outside the home when life changes. (Kids in school, empty nest, etc.)

·         Say yes to things that force you to slow down. Do the dishes by hand and stop using the microwave. Get some plants.

·         Learn a craft: take up crocheting, embroidery, knitting. They slow you down and are easily set aside as needs arise.

·         Set some social boundaries. One social event a week, or even a month.

·         Eat outside and enjoy nature.

·         Plant a garden.

·         Cook from scratch. This will slow you down and force you to say no to a lot of things.

·         Learn to thrift shop.

Leaving room isn’t doing nothing, it’s making the choice to engage in things that are productive but flexible instead of mostly things that are rigid and productive. This is one of the true baseline delights of homemaking.

We live in a world tuned to two working parents and kids in school all day long. Everything is sharp and fast. Sharp and fast. Order meals, have them delivered, microwave them, hurry, hurry, hurry, cut every corner possible because no one has any time. Homemakers aren’t immune to this. We take all these “conveniences” designed for a career woman trying to have it all and we fold them into our homes. Instead of using them in their proper place (emergency backups), we let them take center stage in our lives. We open our hearths to chronic franticness just like the rest of the world. There’s nothing stay-at-home about us. Our career is chauffeur and delivery accepter.

All the things on that list force us to slow down. They aren’t things that can be hurried. They aren’t quick and easy and out the door. They push hecticness out and make us say no. They help us leave room in our lives because we can put them down in times of need. You can’t do that with a job so easily. If you cook from scratch and your church has an emergency, you can order a meal for your family and jump in to help. But if you are always ordering meals because you have so many commitments, it will be harder to figure out how to help when your church has an emergency. Look at it like this: if you have a kid, spouse, family member, or even yourself come down with the flu, will all of life be upset? Do you have room to help your family heal, or will your sick kid get drug around, jobs put in danger, and chaos in everyone’s lives? Do you have room in your home, heart, and hearth to nourish your family when it gets sick? I don’t deny that sickness can upset the flow of the home, but if you can’t get sick or afford to stop and tend to the sick, you need to look at your life and see if you are trying to do too much and pushing your home and family to do too much.

It takes a huge amount of courage and commitment to step back and purposefully slow life down. It will feel lazy at first and you may find yourself struggling with a sense of insignificance. If you thought it was hard to tell other women that you don’t work a career, try explaining that you don’t do things because you don’t want to be frantic. Many women claim to want to be stay-at-home wives/mothers and immediately try to find their significance in how busy they can be. Stop. This isn’t a competition and yes, the world is out to get you. Quit playing by their rules.

Once we’ve gotten off the adrenaline rush of chronic franticness, the next step is to SLOWLY say yes to things of service. Not all of them. We’re not trying to save our world or even our churches.

More Practical Steps

·         Be at church for your church's main worship, service, and catechetical time (this is the best place to start serving).

·         Work in the nursery or hospitality or kitchen or cleaning. Not all, just pick one small area to serve.

·         Look for areas in your church that seem a bit dull and cold. Not all, just pick one small thing. Do something about it.

·         Start a small herb garden and start asking all the other gardeners questions. The next thing you know, you’ll be passing out rosemary and mint.

·         Pay attention to who is missing on Sunday morning or at co-op and reach out to them. Text is fine.

·         Read through the church prayer requests and pray for these people. Reach out as appropriate.

·         Cook a little extra food and share it with one of the single people.

·         Rope a single person into your life and ask them for help.

·         Fix a meal for a mom with littles.

·         Write a card to a shut-in.

·         Invite the new attendee over for tea/coffee.

·         Pray, pray, pray, pray.

Our goal is to be skilled at leaving room in our lives. We’re not frantic. We’re not lazy. We say yes and no as is appropriate for our homes, people, and abilities. This means we acknowledge that we can’t say yes to all the needs that rise up. We will have commitments, plans, in-home projects, and more that inhibit us from dropping everything when an emergency arises. But emergency service isn’t the only type of service. Serving in the nursery isn’t generally an emergency. Helping your elderly neighbor do yard work isn’t often an emergency. Leaving room is leaving room for people’s habitual needs as well. Sometimes we will have to say no. We’ll have to see an area that needs help, and know that we have the skills to help, but not the time, energy, or space in our home to help. That’s a good thing because it forces us to remember we aren’t saviors, and it forces us to live in our communities, our families, churches, neighborhoods, small towns, or themed groups. Admitting we can’t do something allows others to serve. The goal of leaving room isn’t to become the grand server. It is to be able to serve quietly.

We live and work together because we all need help and we all should be helping. Laziness and chronic franticness steal from our homes and our communities. Both are unjust. We must do the hard work of managing ourselves and our homes properly so that we can say yes, and so we know how and when to say no.