Change in the routine

In honor of taking a break from the rountine tasks of each week, I am forgoing my normal blog writing for simply making a few suggestions on blogs to check out.  Sites I read regularly are listed on my main blog page.  I don't read them every day, but enjoy reviewing them regularly and reading the posts that catch my interest.

Just one more way to get information and learn about the things that interest you.  In my mind blogs are no substitute for reading books, but they certainly are good addition. 

Hurry up messes in relationships

A couple of weeks ago, I commented how "hurry-up" messes can effect the organization and neatness level in our homes.  Messes created just  because we do not take the time to clean up or pick up after a job or task. 

With those thoughts in my mind, I wondered how many times in life are the relational messes we find ourselves in due to just plain hurrying?  Not taking or allowing the time to converse politely, being so busy we do not take time to really listen to what another is saying, brushing someone off because we do not want to take the time to interact with them, etc.  Our continually hurrying through life can leave a wake of hurt and broken relationships scattered in our wake simply because we did not take time to consider another more highly than ourself.

Scriptural Encouragement

 ⁶For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
 ⁷But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
 ⁸We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
 ⁹Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

 ¹⁵For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.
 ¹⁶For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
 ¹⁷For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
 ¹⁸While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

II Corinthians 5

Hurry Up Messes

A friend of mine recently used the phrase, "hurry-up messes" in a note she wrote me.  Whether those were her exact words, or whether that was the idea of what she said I don't recall, but as I have been thinking about what to write this week this phrase has jumped out in my mind.

How many times do we create a mess simply because we are in a hurry.   The socks on the floor because we were searching for the pair we wanted and did not take the time to put the others away; the bed unmade because we did not allow the extra two minutes to straighten the sheets and covers; the papers on the desk we did not put away because we worked too late -- messes that are left because we did not allow or take the time to put them away or clean them up.

Maybe allowing margins in our day and schedule is not a bad idea.  Leave a bit of extra time, so when a mess is created (and they will be, for that is part of life) you have the time to put it away/clean it up.  Doing so creates the opportunity to come back to a clean space rather than one that is full of hurry up messes.