Day 3: Matthew 5-7; The Sermon on the Mount

My goal was to read through chapters 5 to 7 in the book of Matthew today.  I got through chapter 5.  I want to expand a little on what I read and how it will affect this season of reducing.

Matthew 5

v. 3-12
Blessed are…
                the poor in spirit
                those who mourn
                the meek
                those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
                the merciful
                the pure in heart
                the peacemakers
                those who are persecuted because of righteousness

Why?
For…
                theirs is the kingdom of heaven
                they will be comforted
                they will inherit the earth
                they will be filled
                they will be shown mercy
                they will see God
                they will be called sons of God
                theirs is the kingdom of heaven

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5:11-12

Why would we not want to be blessed?  There is so much reward. 

v. 13-16

“…let you light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16b

This is one thing that rings loudly in our attempt to simplify our lives.  We wish for others to see us doing so, to praise God for it, and to be inspired to do the same.  To eliminate unnecessary things in order to enhance their relationship with the Lord and others.  We want to be a bright shining family that encourages others and teaches others how to love God by our lifestyle.

v. 17-20

The law has not been abolished by Jesus’ coming.

I find it very important to not become blinded by grace.  It is good to depend on it, because it is how we have been saved, but we are also held accountable for our actions.  The law is important in our relationship with God and doing His will.

v. 21-30

When you consider in your heart and mind to do something sinful, it is the same as the actual sin in God’s eyes.  Before coming to the Lord in worship, first settle your quarrels with others in order to present a pure heart.  Get rid of whatever is causing you to sin rather than defiling your entire body.

This is one of those  “lesser than” sins in the lives of Christians.  “Yeah, I thought about another person sexually, but at least I didn’t actually sleep with them…”  That is just how our society teaches things.  It is okay to think it if you don’t act on it.  This goes the same way for consumerism.  If you are thinking it, you are doing it.  When I dwell upon an item I want, I might as well go and buy it and show it off to everyone – because my heart has been consumed.  My heart has been overcome by this little object instead of my Mighty Savior.  It is important to remember that if our heart and mind are focused solely on God and the things of Him, then sin will be far from our heart and mind.

v. 31-37

Do not divorce except for marital unfaithfulness.  Let your Yes be Yes and your No be No.  Keep your promises.

I like how straightforward those verses are about divorce, but I also believe there are many horrible circumstances that can blurry that command. 
LOVE the “yes be yes and no be no” verse.  There is no need to back up what you say or try to prove you are telling the truth if you always just stick to your word!  Don’t say something if it isn’t true and don’t promise something if you aren’t going to keep it.  It’s that simple.

v. 38-48

Do not resist when those try to do you harm, instead offer them more than they even wanted in the first place.  Turn the other cheek, go the extra mile. 
Love your enemies and pray for them.  Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.

This is a great set of verses for giving.  What better way to have a giving spirit than to make the decision to love those whom you don’t feel like loving, or to give to those who ask so much already.  Offer your second glove if someone steals the first, go even further when someone demands you to walk too far.  That is true sacrifice.  That takes a surrendered heart and spirit to only God. 

Just my thoughts and prayers through reading these verses.  Nothing scholarly or wise about it J

Day 2: Living room toys/kid’s room

We decided, once Jane started crawling/pulling herself to the standing position, that all of our bottom shelves needed to be toys.  We thought it would prevent her pulling our every book from the shelf.  Now she just pulls every toy to the floor…along with her books that are there!  Anyway, each day Jane likes to bring out more and more toys from her room, so the shelves in our living room have become ridiculously cluttered with toys and books of all shapes and sizes.  I decided that I only want a few bigger toys and of course books on the shelves.  So, I consolidated what she had and returned all the others to her room.

 

Again, I forgot a before picture!  I will get better, I promise.

Second, the kids’ room became a pile of toys, clothes and non-sense after we returned from our weekend after Christmas.  All of their gifts were thrown on the floor with all of the clean, folded and unfolded laundry and cloth diapers.  I couldn’t even walk in there.  So, I set out to set things straight!  Plus, we got a free crib from a friend and I thought it would help the room seem more like Jane and Jack’s room if there were two beds…so that needed to be put up as well.

I put up the second bed, made a box of toys/blankets/stuffed animals to give away, hung up clothes and took down clothes that were too small, folded and put up diapers and clothes, and spelled out names with the alphabet tiles J.

Jane's side

The diaper ("dipe") station

Jack's side!

The toys/clothes/piggy bank closet

(which I need to add an updated picture of because it looks much better today)

Our half-broken dresser/bookshelf and adorable daughter, Jane.

 

You can't see from the picture, but Jack’s bed still has stuff in it – clothes that need to be put away mostly.  I decided I got enough done in one day and would be okay leaving that little bit!

Their room still seems really cluttered to me…but for now I don’t know what else to do.  Two kids who both need cribs in a tiny room is just asking for a cluttered feel.  I will let you know if I come up with a better plan and how I simplify their room, if I do.

*I actually have organized it even better since the pictures were taken...I will update you soon*

Day 1: Board Games

 We have these storage compartments in our dining room – they are really quite handy.   On the west wall there are two top cabinets, two closet-like-shelved-cabinets in the middle, and two drawers on bottom.  The top cabinets we have used for storage, the closet on the left is our pantry and the closet on the right has been pure clutter and junk for about a year.  The bottom drawers are mostly empty.  Our goal today is to clean out that right closet.  In doing so, we ended up organizing our pantry, the top cabinets and the bottom drawers as well!  Whew.

Every time I open that door I cringe.  It has board games thown about, baby food jars on one shelf, posters on another shelf, boxes of miscellaneous junk under the board games and there were even some broken glass frames!  I forgot to take a before picture, but this is the finished product:

I told Justin before we started this that it is going to be very difficult for me to spread it out over an entire year.  As soon as we started organizing/trashing/giving things away out of this closet, I was planning and scheming in my head how/what we would do with each and every other room in our house.  I was ready to go to each room and do the same thing.  The problem is, it took us about two hours to sort through everything and the babies only sleep for so long : /

It is okay though.  It is better to spread it out.  That way everything gets done, I don’t get stressed, and we continue it in our normal daily routine in the future.

This first task doesn’t have much deeper meaning except that our closet just really needed to be organized.  It does allow for easier access to games when we have company over, which goes with our socializing more goal.  On the bottom, big shelf we have started stacking our “projects”.  Things we would like to get done in order to make our home more “homey” (like things we need to get framed) and things to make things simpler (like cloth napkins).

That’s all for day one – I’m already just walking around our house finding things that we don’t need or just need to go in the trash! J

Here is the beginning of our "give pile":

Pre-game: The Internet!?!

We decided to get rid of our internet.  When we first had it hooked up we got a special introductory price of $19.99 per month…not a bad deal.  After six months it returned to its regular price of $53.99…unacceptable.  I called the company to see what kind of deals they  could offer us and we ended up getting it for about $30 for another six months.  Our bill arrived the other day with the new price of $53.99 on it…and we made a decision.  We decided that it would be good for us to get rid of the internet to go along with our New Year plan of simplifying our lives.  Not only would it save us money each month, it would help us, specifically me, to refocus my time and attention on more important things (say, our kids or our Lord!).  So far, this internet loss has proven to be more difficult than expected!  I still have internet on my cell phone, but it is hard to write emails or messages on Facebook via “swype”.  It is also harder to check the news, which may end up being a good thing for Justin as it is a time consumer of his; it is harder to keep in touch with friends and family in an easy way; it is harder to watch movies (for free) when we want to just chill; it is harder to find a last-minute recipe for dinner.  It is also quite difficult to blog when one does not have the internet!  Thus, I am blogging in Microsoft Word and posting my days whenever I get access to a free wi-fi spot, which will probably only happen on a weekly basis. 

Overall, getting rid of our internet was a great way to start the new year.  It truly does simplify things.  It reduces the amount of energy we are using in our household (since we no longer need a router and modem plugged in), it reduces wasted time (on things like blogs and news sites), it allows our cash to flow more smoothly throughout the month, it forces us to use other means in communicating with friends and family, thus nurturing deeper connections with those we care about. 

I’m so excited for this year.  I love that our “resolution”, if you will, is spread out and not going to get dropped in a few weeks.  It is a complete change in lifestyle and an ongoing process that we are both committed to.  I think it will last much longer than this year as well.  Thank you Kelly family for inspiring us!  Thank you God for convicting our hearts.  Thank you reader for following along with us in this journey to become less stuff-focused and more God-focused!

Our Year of Less

I follow many blogs.  One of my very favorites is The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking.    In following this blog, I came across the writer’s other blog: the year of less.  Both blogs are written by a Jesus-loving stay at home mom/homemaker.  Go figure, I would read what she has to say.  I love her perspectives on things and she has neat little projects and adorable kids.  Anyway, I was very intrigued by this “year of less”.  After reading all about their purpose/rules and reading through a few of her posts I told Justin about it.  We, Justin and I, had been talking previously about our cell-phones and how we would like to get away from this technology-saturated society and get back to a simpler way of life.  We talked about how we would like to get a land-line phone for the house and have one, very simple, cell phone for our car…a car-phone.  In that discussion lots of other things came up and we realized how things were taking over our lives and how we did NOT want that to continue.  This is when I brought up the blog and we decided to explore this idea more.  Later we decided it would be our New Year’s Resolution to do so.

Our goals and purpose in this year are not completely in line with this blogger’s, but they are quite similar.  Our purpose, goals and guidelines are as follows:

PURPOSE:

“To live a simpler life by getting rid of things that take me away from time with God – and in getting rid of those things, being able to give more.”  -Justin
 

“To find ways to live simpler and more in line with Biblical principles, rather than ‘The American Dream.’  To de-clutter, enjoy what we have (rather than what we think we should have), spend more time with God and give more of my time, energy, resources, money and talents.”  -Jessica

GUIDELINES:

1.       Pray.
For each “thing” we decide to do or not do, we will consider it in prayer and ask for guidance in doing so.

2.     Socialize more.
We would like to spend time with at least one other couple at least twice a month.
Jessica would like to spend time with someone (another mom, woman, etc.) at least once per week – whether it is investing in someone spiritually, or just hanging out.

3.       Consume and have less.
We would like to buy less, eat less and spend less.
We would like to borrow or buy used whenever it is a possibility.
We would like to be wise in deciding what we should buy as an investment for the long-run rather than buying cheap for a short period of time.
We would like to reduce the amount of possessions we have in order to de-clutter our lives and our home.
All these goals will allow for us to spend more time focused on others that we care about much more than things.

4.       Consume consciously.
We would like to research and find reputable companies that care about people and the environment, and buy from them.
We will shop local whenever we can, get to know the business owners, and support our community.

5.       Healthy Living.
We would like to start a healthier eating regimen.
We are cutting out soda.
We will be more active as a family (take walks, ride bikes, etc.)
In doing these things we will (hopefully) lose weight and become better stewards of the bodies God gave us.

6.       Reduce our environmental impact
We will reduce, reuse and recycle anything we can.
We will teach our kids to do the same (as much as we can…they are very young).

7.       Spend time intentionally.
We will be more aware and responsible with how we spend our time.  Even free-time will be “planned”.
We will minimize distractions (such as cell phones, video games, etc.) to be more available and intentional with people around us.

8.       Self-sufficient.
We will try to make, grow or do anything we can, and teach our children to as well.

9.       Give.
In all of these guidelines our sole purpose is to give.  Whether we are giving more love to our kids, more time to God, or more things to others in need – we want to be givers, not consumers and not takers.  We want to be learners and teachers.  We want to be simple followers of Christ and not of America and its agenda.  We want to show our kids how to live for God alone.

Confession:

I am beyond excited.  We have already done a few days of this and it is SO exhilarating!  We have a list of ideas/concepts that we plan to do at some point.  We would love any opinions or ideas you might have!  We do have 365 days to fill, so it might get harder once we get to June!  We hope that you can journey with us, possibly learn something, and desire to be more simple in your lifestyle as well.  I don’t want to continue without once again crediting the year of less!  They are the source of most of our ideas, at least to begin with.  Thanks again Kelly Family for your hearts that love the Lord and desire to do His works in the simplest way possible J

((Side note: some of my words are randomly linked and I have no idea why...))

Jane is almost 10 months.
I am 22 weeks pregnant.
Justin almost switched jobs, but is staying put.

Jane is crawling like a maniac.
I am growing like a maniac.
Justin is studying like a maniac.

Jane is sleeping really well in her own room now.
I am always wanting to sleep as well.
Justin never sleeps, because he works his tail off, both at work and school.

Jane is thankful for a Dada who lets her spend all day with Mama.
I am thankful for a Husband who seeks God and cares for our family above anything.
Justin is thankful for a cute little bug and a healthily growing new bug.

Jane weighs 16lbs and is 27 1/4in long. She is small, but very healthy.
I will find out this evening how much I weigh...but will probably not disclose.
Justin would rather not talk about his weight either :)

Jane likes to pull all her toys off the toy shelf then crawl away.
I like to blog when Jane sleeps.
Justin likes to listen to/watch DMB music whenever he gets the chance.

Short update.
A little pointless.
But needed.

...and then there were four!

We decided that Mother's Day would be a great opportunity to announce...

...Jane is going to be a big sister! 

We are all excited.  Well, as excited as a seven month old can get about something she does not even know...lol.