Living with less...

so your family has more is the name of the current book I am reading. It is written by Jill and Mark Savage. Jill is the founder and CEO of Hearts at Home, an organization that encourages, educates and equips mothers. You can check out her website at http://www.hearts-at-home.org/. I bought this book a few months back, and it has been sitting on my nightstand waiting to be opened. Well, this week I finally took the time to open it. With the economy the way it is and with friends losing their jobs and being forced to live with less, I thought it was a good time to check this book out. I am only a few chapters in but feel that it asks a lot of great questions and just makes you think about the choices, we as mothers, are making everyday. Here are a few paragraphs that I thought were worth sharing…

Maybe you’ve thought or even said aloud:

• I’m tired of living with constant stress.
• I feel disconnected from my spouse.
• I feel disconnected from my kids…
• I just wish our family could sit around the dinner table each night laughing and talking about our day.
• I can’t do this anymore: work, day care, soccer practice, quick meals and shallow relationships.
• There are not enough hours in the day.
• There has to be a simpler way of doing things.

If you have had those thoughts, you are not alone. We all want the best for our kids, but sometimes we lose sight of what “best” just might be. We want to give them more, but we’ve allowed the world to define “more” as things that money can buy. We long to give them every opportunity possible, but we’re missing out on being a family because there are just too many opportunities. We’re focused on providing tangibles-things that money can buy-when what most of us really long for are intangibles-things money can’t buy. The pace of life that many of us are traveling at is actually hurting rather than helping our families.

I love the line about the world defining “more” as things money can buy. I will admit I think that…good food for thought…our children just mostly want our time and attention.

One more section I would like to share with you is a few paragraphs where they ask a series of questions about three particular areas of life that we can intentionally downsize…

Less money-Are our financial challenges really about the high cost of living or the high cost of the way we choose to live? Where can we make different choices in our income and expenses that allow us to find the “more” we’re actually looking for?

Less stress- for may of us. Life is lots of activity, an emphasis on overachievement and accomplishments, and moving up the ladder of success. But what if we defined success differently? What if we looked at accomplishment through a different lens? What if we made countercultural choices that actually resulted in less stress?

Less activities- The world offers parents and children so many opportunities. But just because something is offered doesn’t make it a wise choice for our children, our family, or us. What if we learned to say no more often? What if we created some healthy boundaries that kept us home and focused on family more?

Like I stated before, I have only read the first few chapters, but I love the premise so far. I like reading books that challenge my thinking by asking thought-provoking questions. Books that make me stop and look at my life and make sure that the choices I am making on a daily basis match up with my long-term goals for my family in general. My prayer for you is that you will learn to live with less so that you can enjoy the family that God has blessed you with-happy Friday!