Just a few moments before climbing into bed, I'm skimming through some of my favorite blogs that I like to read. One is called Chasing Zebras and is written by a mother of 4 children, the youngest 2 having life threatening illness with no clear diagnosis, hence the phrase "chasing zebras". Read her blog to learn about her precious family and beautiful, strong children. Her third child, Addison, is Jacob's age and I "met" this mother through a November 2010 birth board on www.babycenter.com. She is a fellow Christian and I enjoy her perspective, honesty, and sharing of her faith in Christ and God's Word. Her most recent post is Taking Back SIMPLICITY and I LOVE it. Josh and I were JUST talking about this idea today as we met with our realtor to take pictures of our house to list it for sale. We have worked tirelessly since getting home for our holiday travels to box up a great deal of our house to prepare and stage it for it to be listed for sale and we really like the more simple layout of our home with much of it boxed up! There's still a lot to box up when the house sells for us to move, but we have been given a new perspective on how we'd like to set up a future home. We often go through our things and get rid of "stuff", but it seems to again multiply as the days and weeks go by. We were just saying we wanted to utilize this move and new blessing of a chapter in our life together to really get rid of things we do not use nor need. Kim, the author of Chasing Zebras used this quote in her post (and, as a collector of quotes, I wanted to share it as well):
"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."
~ William Morris ~
This is my desire for 2013! To, as Kim said, SIMPLIFY! As we move, keeping only what we really need or treasure or believe to be beautiful for our family of 4!
Josh and I were talking today about how blessed we are in starting this year with our family of 4, an inquisitive, funny, energetic 2 year old and a sweet, smiling, laughing, curious 3 month old, and a new job that we've long prayed for and the chance to move to a new city and experience a new adventure together. Yes, we have challenges, heartaches, frustrations, and setbacks to our dreams, but right now we see so much good in our journey as Team Bruffey. Reading Kim's post written from a Mother who has incredible challenges and heartaches as she loves, guides, fights for, weeps for, and cares for her 4 girls really touches home as I think about our world, our culture, our lives lived so (too?) connected to others in cyber environments... that breeds chaos and anything but simplification. I love being in touch with friends and family via Facebook, staying up to date via blogs, reading information online, being a part of birth boards with Mamas who had babies November 2010 and October 2012, online groups of "crunchy" Mamas, babywearing Mamas, our small group Facebook page, my MOPS Facebook page, our church Facebook page, etc. But how much time I devote to each is a choice and now with 2 precious kiddos, I've been scaling back... I was telling my own wonderful Mama about this recently. She said she knows that my blog has long been my creative writing and graphical outlet where I enjoy working with words and photography and encouraged me to still blog as I'm able in whatever way works for our growing family. She offered incredible encouragement to me as a Mother and my life as a wife and home manager.
Thinking of my conversation with my Mama, my conversation with my husband as we plan for the coming new journey, and reading Kim's blog post... I sense God crystalizing something in my heart and mind for me as a woman, wife, and mother in how I serve Him and the lives He has me serving... I am not 100% sure how it all fits together nor how the Lord will have me simplify, but I felt compelled to type all this out as I process what "simplify" will mean for me as God so leads in the coming days, weeks, and months.
Less things. Less time. Perhaps they'll mean less worry. Less concern. More focus where I should. With all that grabs our attention in this world, it's easy for the focus on Christ and following Him and just serving my amazing family to become hazy... and I'm grateful for God's grace that uses an encouraging conversation, musings with my husband, and a fellow Mama's blog post to gently point me towards Him and His plan that I can be a part of.
Thank you Mama. Thank you my beloved Joshua. Thank you Kim.
Here's to 2013 and the simple, beautiful, unknown moments ahead!
~ Mama Bruffey ~
Daughter of God, Wife of One, Mother of Two
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