... i.e. Part 1 of something with an unknown amount of total parts at this time.
"Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly." ~ G. K. Chesterton
Some of you know that we have been on a "keeping Sunday holy kick" around here (for anyone new around here (Welcome!) you can read more about this here, here, here, and here). Recently, I stumbled on that blog post again (mentioned above), and in it, the author says, that if you make Sundays a day of rest "you will see God's blessings showering on you and your family". And so, I want to share with you where this journey has taken us... the struggles... and the blessings.
All journeys have a beginning. And a few months ago, when we decided to start being intentional about Sundays, we were suffering from roommate-itis. The three of us had many days where we went about our business in a parallel manner, but never really intersecting. Sure, the usual duties were getting accomplished, but we weren't really connecting. I would be playing with Matthan, and be too quick to answer a phone call or post a cute picture of Matthan on Facebook. We would be at dinner, and one of us would be too quick to look something up on our phone and then get distracted by emails.... Matthan especially needs to work on this (insert sarcasm sign here). There was a lack of intentional time being spent and a lack of meaningful conversations being had. We were missing each other, sort of passing each other like roommates. We weren't fully engaged with or fully present to the other two.
There are several things that we have discussed changing or improving in our family, but we have had little progress and many failed attempts. It is in my nature to want to do something perfectly the first time. And when I fail (because, Hello!, I'm not perfect), I wallow and decide that it can't be obtained so it's not worth doing. Here's where G. K. and Ramsey come in.
So, while there were several things that we wanted to change in our family, I kept coming across the concept of keeping Sunday holy in the things that I was reading and listening to, and decided to follow this prompting, even if it meant doing it badly. I took a deep breath, let go of my perfectionist tendencies, and decided to go where I had gone and failed before (changing something in our family), and decided to start small. I really really wanted to rush it and strive for all the ways that I had in mind to make Sundays holy for our family... but again, I had to start small. With the big picture of what we wanted in mind, The Hubs and I discussed what one thing we could change that was 1. something that we could change now, in this stage of life, 2. a truly attainable goal, 3. would make an almost instant impact.
And that is how we decided on putting up the cell phones on Sunday. Have I failed? Yep. Have I given up? Nope!! One small step for our family, one huge flippin'-ly-ginormous mega step for me and the development of my perseverance!!
Stay tuned for Part 2.
All journeys have a beginning. And a few months ago, when we decided to start being intentional about Sundays, we were suffering from roommate-itis. The three of us had many days where we went about our business in a parallel manner, but never really intersecting. Sure, the usual duties were getting accomplished, but we weren't really connecting. I would be playing with Matthan, and be too quick to answer a phone call or post a cute picture of Matthan on Facebook. We would be at dinner, and one of us would be too quick to look something up on our phone and then get distracted by emails.... Matthan especially needs to work on this (insert sarcasm sign here). There was a lack of intentional time being spent and a lack of meaningful conversations being had. We were missing each other, sort of passing each other like roommates. We weren't fully engaged with or fully present to the other two.
There are several things that we have discussed changing or improving in our family, but we have had little progress and many failed attempts. It is in my nature to want to do something perfectly the first time. And when I fail (because, Hello!, I'm not perfect), I wallow and decide that it can't be obtained so it's not worth doing. Here's where G. K. and Ramsey come in.
I found this G.K. Chesterton quote: "Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly.", and I felt like I had been set free!! I needed someone to give me permission to try...and to fail. And to try again. This quote has had a profound effect on me (maybe I'll write about that at some point...). Now I've never read Dave Ramsey's book (books?), but I have been told of his method of having people pay off debt starting with the smallest debts and working their way up to the biggest debts. I argued with someone that this idea did not make sense to me because it seemed like people would pay more money in the long run because of interest building up on the bigger amounts of money (pretend that my argument sounded really eloquent and I used a lot of large financial words, okay?). But I was told that it's more about the small accomplishment and the feeling of success with the little debts that help people work towards paying off the bigger debts. And that is a concept that can be applied to our lives in general (I could write a blog post about just this idea... I might).
So, while there were several things that we wanted to change in our family, I kept coming across the concept of keeping Sunday holy in the things that I was reading and listening to, and decided to follow this prompting, even if it meant doing it badly. I took a deep breath, let go of my perfectionist tendencies, and decided to go where I had gone and failed before (changing something in our family), and decided to start small. I really really wanted to rush it and strive for all the ways that I had in mind to make Sundays holy for our family... but again, I had to start small. With the big picture of what we wanted in mind, The Hubs and I discussed what one thing we could change that was 1. something that we could change now, in this stage of life, 2. a truly attainable goal, 3. would make an almost instant impact.
And that is how we decided on putting up the cell phones on Sunday. Have I failed? Yep. Have I given up? Nope!! One small step for our family, one huge flippin'-ly-ginormous mega step for me and the development of my perseverance!!
Stay tuned for Part 2.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." ~Thomas A. Edison
Beautiful pictures! You are getting better with your photography skills. Thanks for the good reminder to keep on trying. And don't answer my calls when I forget and call you on Sunday. ;)
ReplyDelete