We've changed our living room furniture around a half-dozen times the last few weeks, moving and tweaking, hanging pictures and patching holes. Growing up, I remember mom rearranging furniture often. I remember feeling like we had received something new each time and the feeling would last for several weeks. Walking into the rearranged living room seemed exciting and fresh and there was no money involved, no new furniture purchased. Just a little change.
This house gives a definition to our boundaries and there's only so much we can do to change things up without tearing down walls and spending wads of money. We can paint or hang pictures or move couches and coffee tables, and from the outside we still live in the same house.
We haven't really changed our house, just the way we live in it.
The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance.
Psalm 16:6
A safe home gives a confidence that you can change your mind or your plan or your opinion and still be ok. You can bounce between the walls of your allotted dwelling and you are still safe inside. From the outside, you are sheltered within safe boundaries.
With the turning of the year and the numerous lists for doing and being better and more in 2015, we can get the feeling that boundaries are something to be pushed against, kind of a don't fence me in mentality.
I think boundaries might be just what we need, though; a fence to keep us in, and a protection to keep other stuff out - stuff like busy-ness and tail-chasing, covetousness, jealousy, and discontent.
Having boundaries keeps you from chasing someone else's dream. You have multiple gifts and talents, but if you are open to every passing whim, you'll spend your time being busy about busy-ness that's not your own.
You don't have to "do it all" and you shouldn't be trying. Let someone else excel in their area of expertise. You do your thing.
Accepting your boundaries builds contentment and thankfulness. When you know what you've been given to work with, you can encourage others in their gifts and not feel threatened, inferior, or useless. You can focus on the things inside your own boundaries and give your best to those things God has called you to.
Excelling within your boundaries only happens when you hunker down and open up to what His hand is offering. Don't fight those things in your way. Working with what you've been given may be the only way to expand borders that feel tight. Faithful in the little things, remember?
My title, if I really needed one, would be something like "stay-at-home, homeschool mom". There are all kinds of boundaries inherent in that title, some real and some imagined, but I have the same hours you do. Those hours are my boundaries, as well as the needs of the 5 other people in this home.
Is there any point in pushing against those borders?
Instead, I need to front-load my day with those things in my way - the bills, the exercise, the meal planning, and the laundry. If I can roll over them before noon, my life feels much more spacious at 2 p.m.
Sometimes we need a change, scary as it may be, and sometimes that change is just a simple rearranging of how we do things, view things, organize the things that are necessary in each day.
Rearranging furniture doesn't change your life, but working within your boundaries can change the way you live.