Walk It Out - Creating White Spaceናሙና

  Creating White Space

One evening John arrived home from work and found I’d reached my breaking point. It was 6 o’clock, and I hadn’t started dinner. The kids were fighting, and I’d been in a bad mood most of the day because I was exhausted. I’d just gotten home from grocery shopping and was still lugging the bags in from the car. When John walked into the kitchen, I dropped my load. As the groceries tumbled to the floor, tears tumbled from my eyes.

“I can’t do this,” I said with trembling lips. “I feel as if I’m never home. We’re running from place to place, and the kids are fighting all the time. I’m tired, and I just don’t want to do any of it anymore!”

John could have said, “I told you so,” but he didn’t. His gaze spoke love and compassion. “That’s it,” he said. “After dinner we’re going over your schedule. You can’t keep up this pace.”

I was happy for us to go over my schedule. I wanted John to see all I did, and maybe have a little more compassion. Also, I was pretty sure there wasn’t much to give up. Everything felt important. Everything made me feel important.

After dinner John sat down with me and asked some questions:

• What are the most important things in your life? 
• What things do you really value? 
• What things are you doing because you didn’t want to say no? 
• What things do you wish you could give up but feel like you can’t because doing so would be backing out on a commitment? 
• What activities are the kids involved in that sounded like a good idea at first but are not really working?

As we talked, John pointed out three things. First, we didn’t have to do everything in this one season of life. Second, if something wasn’t working, we didn’t have to keep doing it. And third, we couldn’t do what God asked us to do (the true desires of our hearts) if so many other things filled our minds, attentions, and schedules. 

These insights apply to each of us. We can walk out Scripture’s mandates only if we make room for God to work in our hearts and lives. I needed to be still and know that He is God (see Ps. 46:10) so I could hear His still, small voice and better understand His purposes for me. 

John helped me clear out the clutter by suggesting I list everything I did in a week. Once I did that, we numbered each item from one to four, in order of importance. Here’s how we determined the level of importance:

1. Things I had to do. (Things that were nonnegotiable: feed children, get them dressed, homeschooling/homework, writing assignments, Bible study, and prayer.) 
2. Things I should do. (Things that were ideal to do, but could occasionally be skipped, or someone could help with: laundry, cook dinner, bathe my kids, serve others.) 
3. Things I wanted to do. (Things I enjoyed doing and what helped me: Bible study group, exercise class, coffee with a friend, a child’s favorite sport or activity.)
4. Things I didn’t need to do. (Things done out of duty or guilt or to look good: volunteering because I couldn’t say no, extracurricular activities, things I thought made me a good mom.) 

Then John asked me to do something drastic:

1. Cut out all the fours—the things I was doing in order to look good or out of guilt. 
2. Limit the threes, realizing there would be different seasons in life when I could do other things I wanted to do. 
3. Take a moment to appreciate the white space created when I cut these things from my schedule. 
4. Identify family goals and create habits around those goals.