Last week, I invested a lot of my time and energy into getting our house more in order and getting our family into a new routine. It was a lot of work and honestly, there were multiple days that I didn’t want to put the effort into it.
But I kept at it and by the end of the week, our house looked so much better, our lives seemed a lot less chaotic, and I felt like I could breathe again. It felt so good.
However, it wasn’t the clean house, calmer days, or less cluttered drawers I was most happy with. It was the space this freed up in our lives… space to exhale, space to love each other better, space to look into a child’s eyes and listen, space to stop and invest time.
It’s easy to get caught up in the busy, busy, rush-rush, go-go pace of life. To constantly feel like you have to hurry through the moment to get to the next thing.
I get it that there are seasons when that’s just what you have to do. It’s finals week at school. Or you just had a baby. Or your grandmother is in the hospital. Or your friend was diagnosed with cancer.
Sometimes, we can’t slow the pace of life and we just have to go with it and power through.
But most of the time, I believe that we can choose to slow down.
We can choose to do less. To say no to the crazy, frantic pace. To put forth the effort to get better routines in place and less clutter in our homes and on our calendars so that instead of a hurried pace, we have a calm S-P-A-C-E.
Space to love that child who needs extra nurturing on a Monday morning.
Space to listen to our friend who is feeling discouraged and overwhelmed today.
Space to text or call our neighbor who is going through a rough patch.
Space to smile at the elderly person in front of us in the checkout lane.
Space to pray for someone who is struggling.
Space to share a kind word of encouragement.
Space to refresh our souls so we can better serve those around us.
S-P-A-C-E. It’s a beautiful thing!
Near the end of last week, as we were working on our morning chores, one of the kids found a copy of Silas’s very favorite books of all time: Goodnight Moon. We hadn’t read the book in months and we’d all sort of forgotten about it.
There were squeals of joy when it was re-discovered. And because I had space in my day, I was able to stop, snuggle with all three kids, and read the book aloud to them.
It was a simple thing — and it didn’t take a lot of time. But it was a beautiful moment in time. One that I will treasure in my heart for a long time.
I don’t want to miss out on these every day moments.
Related: Read this excellent post on why we need to stop being managers of our homes and instead start being nurturers of those in our home.
