Wordfilled & Wordless Wednesday

Just Say No!

Somehow it keeps happening: we have an unhealthily-full schedule. It feels like I keep trying to harness it, but somehow, we end up packing it all in. Week after week. As self-appointed social coordinator of our family, I'm quick to take the blame, so it has been my continuous goal to calm our schedule down more than a little …each week.

But it doesn’t seem to be working.

So I mentioned that perhaps we just need to learn to say “No.” Well, not really learn, because we actually know how to say it {at least so much more than we did 5 years ago.}. Also, it isn't like we are this delicate couple just too intimidated to say, “sorry maybe another night”. The problem is that we love everyone and everything.

We love our friends, we love people, we love having people over, we love church, we love our nights at home together, we love going into the city, we love trying new things, we love helping, we love serving, we love eating, we love talking …we love listening. We love doing everything. So it isn’t that we can’t say no to things we don’t want to do…

… it’s that we just want to do everything!

It’s difficult when both partners want to do everything. We each, on our own… and together…  enjoy so many things. But fortunately, life is a bit different now with our little guys and their needs. The fact is that our decisions really need to be intentional, not because we are trying to keep to some kind of schedule {I mean, there is definitely a basic routine to the eating and napping and playing/learning that keeps them healthy} but because our decisions now affect two lives that have been put into our responsibility. That’s not to say we want to stop everything we are doing because we have kids, but I think it does mean that we need to show discernment and wisdom and care …and an amount of intentionality… with the choices we make, the people we invest in, the new things we try.

So eventually we’ll get it. I feel a personal responsibility to make it happen. One day we’ll see it in our google calendar: a completely event free week. Ahh. I can dream, can’t I? 

Well, maybe not completely event free =) 

Craving Community.

Desires. I'm not talking about love, or lust for that matter. I'm talking about the things our heart strings are pulled towards. Why I was designed in such a specific way. Why my heart sings and dances at the notion of certain things and settles at the idea of others. Why these loves of mine can relate with few and not so with others. Why those same people may understand yet misunderstand me.

Why we are all so different.

. But not completely .

I am developing a deeper appreciation for who I am and how our relationships are designed to be brilliantly and intricately complex. { I know, I'm having one of those weird, brain barf experiences where few may connect and most will 'x' out thinking she really is crazie. }

But seriously. Just hear me out. I desire connection and J sometimes teases me on how this reveals itself. I undoubtedly find that almost every person I meet 'reminds me of' someone else I know. "She's just like ___" or "Don't you think He reminds you a little of ___"?

Now, they are probably nothing alike, and perhaps its just that they both like the same color. Honestly, I think it is just a terrible way for me to connect, or rather, relate with others. Well I'm friends with this person and this new person kind of reminds me of her, so hey, we can be friends too. I mean, obviously, I don't really think it's that simple. I’m not exactly sure why I do that. It just something I do.

But I do know that we were wired to desire relationships. Connection. Community.

We want to engage with people who will understand us. People who will accept the 'who' that we are. People who will take the time needed. People who are not afraid to be honest with us. People who will celebrate….

...Me.

It's a funny thing; my closest friends are not always the most similar to me. I mean, we may have common interests, happenings, lives in this lot... but in the details, we often stray from here to there.  In fact, my closest confident, lover - friend - above all, is most unlike me in so many of the specifics. And yet we are so in sync with regards to the grander things in life.  So, perhaps that’s it. Our mission is the same, but the way we get there…well it could look very different.  This is the man to whom I am quite capable of talking on and on about all the various facets of a given situation, and his very rendition of the same exact scenario would often be summed up into one brief sentence. 

Here's the even funnier thing: he still finds my rants interesting. For whatever reason, he still takes the time out to listen, even though I continue to belabor on and on about the particulars.

Somehow, we are so the same and yet so entirely different.  It's wonderful, really. We have learned to celebrate those differences in each other and embrace the similarities as we move forward in this life together.  

Even though he can sometimes be simple vanilla and I can be as eclectic as rocky road can be...

we still connect.