Years and years ago we lived in a big yellow house on a hill, with a 5 acre horse stable right behind it. With two girls already madly in love with horses, this was a dream location! Every window on the back of our house overlooked our neighbor’s barn and an arena where our daughters spent every free moment. When we moved there Matthew was one, Elizabeth eight, Rebekah eleven, and John Mark thirteen. We luxuriated in all the space this new home afforded, with storage closets tucked under the eaves and twice as may kitchen cupboards as our previous home.

And somehow, somewhere along the way, we started storing stuff in all those closets and cupboards. Lots of stuff.

I went to garage sales and found stuff, then to the dollar store, where I stocked up on stuff. I bought books for the kids at the grocery store for $3.99— such a deal!

Cheap stuff, unnecessary stuff, too much stuff.

At Christmas we filled stockings with stuff, grandparents sent stuff, friends stopped by with stuff. And before long all that stuff started to back up into our living space like a clogged drain choked with excess… stuff!

Between buying organizers to store all that stuff, then clearing up clutter and putting stuff away, my days had become one long chasing after the chaos all that stuff created.

You know what I’m talking about? Does that describe your home?

Are you ready to exchange all that for a sense of order and cleanliness that doesn’t come at the cost of your relationship with your kids? Unfortunately, I too often sacrificed niceness on the alter of perfection.  I wish I could say I was always patient and kind, but if my kids read this they'll call me out! And though I struggled and too often failed, I've learned some things along the way I wish I'd known at the start. Here are...

 10 Ways To Teach Your Kids (And Yourself!) How To Bring Order Out Of Chaos.

 #1. Reduce the amount of stuff

Where does this strange compulsion to accumulate and collect come from? Is it from the Spirit of God? I don’t think so. Is it from my flesh? Yes! that greedy, grasping, heedless part of me that craves stuff. So why do we keep it? Why spend money on plastic bins and organizers and shelves and systems to store all that stuff? Why indoctrinate our children in our greedy inclination to gather more stuff?

#2. Set a limit on stuff

You’ve helped your kids edit their possessions down to just what they love, what they pull out several times a week, what they actually use. Now it’s time to be clear that if they get something new, and they want to keep it, something old has to be given away.

In other words: this much and no more!

#3. Give your kids responsibility for their stuff

Instead of being the chief keeper and cleaner and put away-er of your children’s stuff, give them that job title. Make each person over the age of three responsible to clean it up and pick it up and put it away where it belongs.

#4. Incorporate ‘Once-Throughs’ into your daily routine.

When my kids were little, every night before bed the whole crew made sure every thing was picked up and put away. School papers, shoes, toys, every odd bit and piece had to be put away. Then, after breakfast, another once-through that included beds made and clothes picked up. One more once-through before dinner enabled our home to stay reasonably tidy.

Whenever I failed to keep this routine running, I inevitably defaulted into that annoyed, unfriendly my-kids-are-driving-me-bonkers mode.

#5. Train your kids to focus and notice stuff.

The child who can stand on the edges of his mess and evaluate what needs to happen in what order, is already way ahead in management skills! But most kids do not learn this automatically— they need to be patiently taken through the process of a quick and thorough clean up of toys and clothes and towels and last week’s lunch.

#6. Give your kids daily chores.

By training your children to have a daily work routine, you are preparing them for real life. In the real world no one steps in to do our job for us when we don’t feel like it. In real life something not-good happens to us when we drop the ball on one of our responsibilities.

#7. Institute periodic family workdays.

Something about cleaning out your closet while mom is cleaning out hers just takes away some of your child’s reluctance. We’re in this together! Or getting the whole family to chip in for a spring yard clean up, or window washing, or tidying up the garage. Teach your children that we work as a team, everyone contributing, everyone sticking with it until the job is completed.

#8. Whistle while you work!

This, of course, starts with mom. No barking orders (gosh, my kids hated that!), or getting mad (after all, it’s your job to stay on top of it by wise management), or grumbling (I can’t believe this mess!). Instead, teach yourself and everyone in your family to enjoy the sense of achievement that a clean up or a project can bring. Make sure they step back and admire their work- and that you step up to cheer them on.

This, for me, was a big fail. If I had it to do over again…

#9 Work before play

It’s a whole lot easier to get your kids to clean up and do their chores before they get involved in playing than it is to interrupt their creative play. But I still use this phrase to motivate me when I’m just not feeling in the mood to get something done.

After I work on this project for 2 hours, I can enjoy a break for tea and read a book for a while…

#10 Teach your kids how to break big projects into small steps

Some of us are not born knowing instinctively how to tackle projects. We don’t see those logical steps that lead to the finish line. Which may be why your child doesn’t even try.

If you’ll come alongside and do it with them, teaching and training them how to make lists, how to start, how to backtrack a timeline so they get it done on time… you will save them so much angst in our extremely project-oriented world.

My home is empty of children now, just the two of us in this small space. And I still find myself defaulting back to clean-it-up-only-when-it-drives-me-crazy mode! Back to those once-through’s for me…

From a heart craving a life of order,

Diane

P.S. Okay moms— this is your clue. What are you doing to bring order out of the typical chaos that seems to cling to children? How are you managing all that stuff? Send us the ideas in the comments so we can all learn from each other!

Today's guest post was written by Allie Rice, our resident web designer and consultant. In You’ve Got Mail, Kathleen Kelley (Meg Ryan) is writing an email to Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) in which she talks about how her life is valuable but small. She then goes on to ask: Do I live this way because I like it or because I haven’t been brave?

I would actually argue that living a small life is very brave.

When I think of a small life, I think of Paul’s exhortation to the Thessalonians to live quietly. There are many good reasons to live quietly, but for me, it’s because I don’t want to miss the things that only surface in the spacious quiet. For me, like Elijah, the voice of the Lord isn’t in the gale and it isn’t in the earthquake and it isn’t in the fire; it’s the still small voice (1 Kings 19).

But living a small but valuable life — living quietly — is hard. Sometimes, our lives feel too big — too many people, too many engagements, too many text messages, too many to-dos. Other times, our lives feel too insignificant — too many mundane tasks, too many obligations, too many hours on Pinterest, too many dishes and diapers. Still other times, our lives feel too noisy — too many Instagrams, too many lifestyle blogs, too many screaming toddlers, too many expectations.

And often times, our lives feel too big and too insignificant and too noisy — too much and not enough, all at the same time.

We're running all day and yet getting nothing done. We’re giving all of ourselves and yet feel the crushing weight of inadequacy. We’re never alone and yet we’re lonely.

I’ve run up against this too much and not enough for many years, and managed it with varying degrees of success. But since becoming a mama, it has become louder and sharper. I’ve become messy and disappointing. My desires — to create things, to love people well, to check my checkboxes and plan my plans and do life on purpose — haven’t changed, but my life certainly has.

If I want to keep living intentionally and getting things done and fighting against a big, noisy, insignificant life, there are some things I have to do.

I have to say no to good things.

The truth is that there are too many good things and not nearly enough time for all of them. I tend to have a default setting of yes. But that was never sustainable or wise, and now it’s impossible and foolish. Just because something is good doesn’t mean that it’s something God has for me, and I have to discern the difference.

How I make it happen:

• I constantly ask, "Has God given me grace for this?” This is not a question of what he has given someone else grace for (or, more accurately, what I perceive that he’s given them grace for). He may have given someone else grace to make homemade goldfish crackers and candy corn, but he hasn’t given that grace to me.
• Per Shauna Niequist’s recommendation, I made a list of things I don’t do. (My list includes things like I don’t shop at WinCo and I don’t garden.) See also: Quit something on Thursdays.
• When all else fails, I give myself a refresher on why to say no and how to be less available.

I have to be okay with working incrementally.

I love giant expanses of time where I can really dig in and make substantial progress. I like to finish things the day I start them. But life with a baby who doesn’t sleep (and now a toddler who doesn’t sleep) doesn’t yield expanses of time. Instead of having three hours to write a blog post on a Tuesday, I have to invest 20 minutes a day for a few weeks. Instead of doing all the house cleaning on Saturday afternoons, I have to clean my house for 15 minutes a day (and, let’s be honest, have a slightly dirtier house). I have to remember that one big achievement is the sum of many small faithfulnesses. Or as Van Gogh put it, “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”

I make this happen through time blocking:

• When we ask the question, “What am I going to do today?” it’s likely that we’ll feel overwhelmed by all the things or end up discouraged because we were derailed halfway through a project. Instead, I ask, “What am I going to do in [area] for the next [minutes]?”
• Set a timer for a limited amount of time (usually 20 or 30 minutes) and use that time to do something specific. When you go into it knowing you only have 30 minutes, you’re likely to pick tasks that actually need doing and that you’re actually going to finish in 30 minutes.
• And if you don’t finish the task, don’t despair — you can set aside another 30 minute block tomorrow to wrap it up. Instead of feeling like your tasks are “now or never,” you’ll know they're “now or soon."

I have to redefine accomplishment.

If I only feel accomplished when I complete a project, I’m going to have a lot of disappointing days. I have to count every one of those small faithfulnesses as accomplishments. Some days, my only accomplishments are brushing my teeth and keeping the toddler from eating rocks. That’s enough.

How I make it happen:

• If you’ve attended a liturgical church or read the Book of Common Prayer, you’re probably familiar with the daily office: prayer and scripture for times of day. I’ve started thinking of the responsibilities of my days as another kind of daily office: Bags to be packed in the morning, snacks to be prepared in the afternoon, bottles to be washed in the evening. It would be ideal to complete several tasks or an entire project every day, just as it would be ideal to spend an hour or more reading the scriptures every morning and evening. But some days — and some seasons of life — aren’t conducive to these things. Instead, I do my daily office — I read my few verses and attend to my personal litany of daily duties — and have faith that, when it’s possible, the Lord will entrust me with more (Luke 16).
• If something requires more than one step to be completed, it’s a project, not a task. This is why laundry sits on my to-do list for three days before I get to check it off. I try to avoid these projects masquerading as tasks whenever possible. Breaking things into their smallest possible pieces makes your tasks attainable, simple, rewarding, and transparent.
• I’m a big fan of the priority triangle — the idea that, at any given time, you should have fewer big things than small things on your plate. The problem is that my triangle is too big. There have been times in my life when having 20 small things, 12 medium things, and 5 big things on my agenda was doable. That time is not now. Three small things, two medium things, and one big thing is probably where I should cap out in this season of my life. Know your limits. Draw a smaller triangle.

I have to find my value in my identity, not my role.

When I have more capacity, I can find much of my value in what I do. But when I have little time and zero margin, I’m forced to find my value in who I’m created to be. This is actually a profound gift.

I’m so quick to slip into striving, to pursue every cliche of so-called biblical womanhood, to try to be a Proverbs 31 woman (whatever that means). Yet when my life feels too big and too insignificant and too noisy, I can only be one thing: beloved daughter of the King. And the only way I can make that happen is by leaning into Jesus.

“…the wise of heart will know the proper time and procedure.”

Ecclesiastes 8v5

For as long as I can remember I have fought the feeling that I have too much to do. Too many errands, too many deadlines, too long a to-do list. Too many things I should have done but didn’t because I had too much to do.

 And often— too often— that too-much-to-do feeling has turned me anxious, fretful, and inevitably crabby.

Do you know what I mean? Is that your story too?

Or are you like all the women I put up on a pedestal— cool, efficient, and AMAZING? You know who I’m talking about:

They post pictures of their four-year-old’s Princess Party on Pinterest. Gauze and glitter, crowns on every child (and DIY directions on how you can make them for under a dollar!). The birthday girl looks overwhelmingly happy, not a tear or a temper tantrum in sight.

The women who manage to keep their house perfectly clean, their clothes perfectly stylish, and their lives perfectly managed. Women who never lose anything, never run out of anything, and are never, ever late.

Oh! And whose Christmas gifts are wrapped in perfectly coordinated paper— of course.

I am not one of those.

And if you’re not either, I’d like to share with you some things I’m learning about what to do when that feeling of too-much-to-do begins to choke your joy. And how not to let your LIST chase your dreams right out to the rubbish heap where dreams go to die.

1.    Rejoice by choice.

I know that sounds hokey but it’s a phrase that has stuck in my head and keeps coming back to me whenever I’m running helter-skelter to get more done than I am capable of doing.

The apostle Paul was stuck in prison and couldn’t do or accomplish anything! Instead of going crazy and complaining, he chose to “continue to rejoice”[1], dictating a letter to a group of Jesus followers for whom it had “been granted on behalf of Christ… to suffer for Him” the “same struggle” as Paul was enduring.

Here’s Paul’s motto: “Rejoice in the LORD always. I will say it again, Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all.”

Rejoicing by choice replaces stressfulness with gentleness.

2.    Hide and Abide

Once, years ago, I was hiking high in the Alps with Phil and some friends. All of a sudden I was overwhelmed with a sense of panic— the drop on either side of the path was dizzyingly steep. I froze. The only way I could get down that peak was by putting my hands on Phil’s back as he led me step by step down the mountain. I think of that often when I remind myself to hide my face in the One who loves me like no other.

By hiding in, and abiding with Jesus, we can make it step by step down any mountain we face.

3. Get your Assignments from God

When I wake up every morning early enough to spend a luxurious amount of time listening to the Father, He directs the paths of my day. Which is why I make my list after I’ve spent time in the Word.

I get my list from God by knowing who I am and who I’m not, lest I try to be superwoman. Or someone else: my best friend, that woman I admire, or the pretend person I follow like a puppy dog, wishing I were her.

I cannot do everything but I can do the all-things God has assigned just for me.

4. Know your Big Thing

The same man who rejoiced by choice, had purposefully cleared his life of anything that wasn’t about his God-given purpose. That specific, clarified purpose gave him the power in Christ to “strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.” [2] It was Paul’s Big Thing.

For most of my adult life, my God-given purpose was raising four children to love God with all their might and mind, soul and strength. Now that’s changed. Now my Big Thing is to invite women to know God intimately, to learn to listen to His Voice.  And it’s also to partner with Phil to teach parents to intentionally raise children who become passionate Jesus followers. All the while, continuing to do all I can to help my own children raise the next generation of passionate Jesus followers.

Your Big Thing is that one thing that, if you found out your death was imminent, you would regret you hadn’t done.

5. Turn your Dreams into Goals

What do you dream about doing and being? What do you wish for in those quiet moments when you can listen to the longing in your heart?

I’m not talking about dreaming of cruises and castles and becoming a super star. I mean those God-given dreams, the things He has equipped you for but life keeps getting in the way and you’re afraid you’ll never do what you know God has called you to do.

Rather than spend your life simply wishing, what if you laid it all out before God and under His guidance dared to turn your dreams into actual, bona fide goals?

Goals are dreams purposely put on the calendar.

What a difference might it make if instead of forging ahead, list in hand, working harder, smarter, better, and more, we chose instead…

to rejoice,

to tuck ourselves in close to the Father,

to get our assignments only and always from God,

to ask Him what is our Big Thing, and then

to confidently put His dreams for me onto my calendar?

From a heart learning wisdom,

Diane

P.S. How are you learning to tame your to-do list? I'd love to know.

---

[1] Philippians 1v18

[2] Colossians 1v29

 I was 19 when I married Phil— a girl just emerging into womanhood. I hardly knew myself, let alone what I would do with my life. I thought what I wanted was to be a wife and mother and home manager/beautifier/creator. And I did. I still do.

As my children grew, however, my heart widened to want to do more. I had poured so much of myself into my family for so many years and learned so much about myself in the process. Now they were leaving to embrace their own lives and callings and I wanted to do the same.

Instead of aching at the loneliness of their empty places at the table I wanted to set more places. I wanted to make room to bring more people into my heart and life.

But, truth be told, I am a raging introvert and by the time all four of our children left home I needed unstructured hours to relish vast spaces of time alone. And that’s what I did. I puttered around the edges of those things I’d never had time to do. And the more I crossed off my To Do list for “when the children grow up”, the more I found myself disappointed by what I’d thought would be so satisfying.

I canned peaches. The idea of rows and rows of cans lining my pantry appealed to every part of me. But my peaches turned out just a little too soft and mushy instead of bright and crisp like my friend-the-expert-canner.

I burned fancy jams on the stove when my head wandered into lines of thought that sent my scurrying into my library to look something up or write something down.

My house refused to stay as clean as I’d thought it would. And when it was sparkling and pretty I just didn’t get the rush out of it that I’d thought I would. The dog still shed atrociously, the yard still grew weeds, the windows still suffered the onslaught of Oregon rain.

Soon my time filled with the miscellany of urgent must-do’s and ought-to-do’s that I hadn’t done while I was giving myself to the task of raising four children. And...

All those musts and oughts of grown up womanhood left me underwhelmed and unimpressed.

What was supposed to satisfy me didn’t.

That is when I ran smack into a truth I hadn’t seen, hadn’t known was meant for me too. I found it in the New Living Translation of Ephesians 2:10,

“For we are God’s masterpiece.

He has created us anew in Christ Jesus,

So we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

 And it dawned on me that those “good things he planned for us long ago” are actual, real, tangible tasks!

Then I bumped into Mark 13v 34. Jesus is telling a story about His coming again. As He so often does, He puts His truths into a real-life context for us so it’s more than simply pie-in-the-sky theory. He’s painting a word picture about a man who goes away and…

"He leaves his servants in charge, each with his assigned task."

 Hello! I have an assigned task?

Yes! Yes! Yes!

And so do you.

Long ago, God planned tasks for you to do, then He master-crafted you into just the right combination of gifts and personality and talent to do those assigned tasks. He gave you a story to live with room for dreams and risk and wild ideas about how your life might make a tangible difference in this world.

And now He is weaving your story— the good, the bad, and the ugly— into the your own coat of many colors as His empowering mantle enables you to do those things that only you can do.

That is your Big Thing. That task, those assignments that God gives you, and only you.

Have you discovered your Big Thing?

Because if you haven’t, you will flounder. You’ll be frustrated, sidetracked and unsatisfied with the daily doings of the stuff of life.  Or you’ll be comparing yourself to all those other over-achievers who manage to don their superwoman costume before they’re even out of their twenties. And then you’ll feel inadequate and disappointed in the YOU you have become.

Do you know why your Big Thing matters?

Our Big Things are not first and foremost about us and our desires and gifts and opportunities, but about God’s story and the part we each get to play in it. If you miss your Big Thing by ignoring or being ignorant of His assignments for you, the whole Church suffers and so does this world. You are needed.

Do you know how to find your Big Thing?

It might not be something that will put your name in lights and have people begging for your autograph. It might not make you money. For my friend, Kathy, it means getting up the courage every week to visit the women in jail who have become her "girls". To pour the love of Jesus over them and into them, to make disciples in prison. Now she's got a whole list of us who pray for each of these women and for Kathy. Her Big Thing is a very big thing to those scared and scarred young women who hang on to her every word.

And if you’re a parent, your first and foremost Big Things have names. God’s astonishing first plan for evangelism is stated in Deuteronomy, chapter 6. Nothing could be a bigger thing than creating in your child a deep, authentic love for Jesus and training him to follow Him.

Is there any urgency about doing your Big Thing?

Yes, I do believe there is. Jesus said this:

All of us must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the One who sent Me,

because there is little time left before the night falls and all work comes to an end.

John 9v4 NLT

 Do we get more than one Big Thing in this life?

 Yes! Once upon a time my Big Thing was all about my kids. Then it was all about leading the Ministry to Women at our church as a means of helping my husband and loving our people. Then it was all about writing my story. And just as I see the completion of that, it is pouring myself into the Intentional Parenting ministry with my husband so we can come alongside a generation of parents who need help.

These Big Things have filled my days with meaning. When I remember that the Big Things are what matter more than all the pressing duties and deadlines, I live with a sense of accomplishment, of grateful rest. I am needed and I know it.

When you identify your Big Thing, you live every day with a sense that you were made for this!

And in case you’re wondering what a Big Thing looks like, I’ve lined up women to tell you about theirs in the coming months. Because it is my earnest prayer that each of you find your Big Thing and hold on for the ride of your life!

From my heart,

Diane

P.S. It would be so fun if you would write your Big Thing in the comments so we all get a glimpse of what God is doing with other women’s lives.

P.S.S. There is so much more to be said here. My son’s newest book, Garden City, will give you the full theological scope of these “assigned tasks”.

My love for books is legendary.

Phil sighs every month as he goes through the list of Amazon purchases. My bookshelves groan and I need more so I can liberate my boxes of books from the stuffy attic.

When I open the pages of a new book something happens inside me, a yearning to push myself into a front row seat, to learn and gather and grow.

Not surprisingly, then, as I spend this month sharing what I have learned and am learning about bringing ORDER to my oft times messy mind, I turn to the books that have earned space on the table next to my great big white chair. This is where I read and study and get lost in another’s story.

The Best Yes by Lysa Terkeurst

The president of Proverbs 31 Ministries, Lysa writes like a woman who knows how hard it is to clear the cluttered counters of our lives so that we can do that One Thing that matters. She writes about the aching of our souls when exhaustion becomes normal and rushing takes the place of achieving.

And then she gets practical. She asks questions I felt compelled to answer- so much so that about half way through I ordered the Study Guide. More questions. The kind that I couldn’t answer right away. The kind I had to take on long walks so I could think and pray and wait for true answers.

This book would be so fun to work through with friends. And really, it’s designed that way. The study guide has 6 sections- about the perfect length for a sit-around-the-table group of friends.

Organizing for the Creative Person by Dorothy Lehmkuhl & Delores Lamping

This book is changing the way I do life. Of all the organizing books I’ve read, this is the one that makes sense to me. This book explains how right-brain dominated people can choose to adopt left-brain tactics to bring order to their creative dreams. If you start things but don’t finish… if you have a gazillion ideas but can’t seem to follow through… if you face a project with dread because you don’t know what to do first, and second, until it’s done… this is your book. I will be rereading this often.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

This is a business book. I am not a businesswoman. I am a woman with a passion to live my life fully and only as a follower after Jesus. I want to make a difference. Which is why I think everyone should read this book. God gives us purpose by assigning us tasks to do that only we can do. This author has made a career of studying how to do that one thing well rather than what he calls “the undisciplined pursuit of more”.

I’ve put this on my yearly must read stack.

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

Who hasn’t heard about this book?! The premise of the book is that all the clutter we live with is drowning us, chasing peace and a sense of calm right out of our lives. Marie Kondo gives readers a delightful way of deciding whether to keep it or give it away. I won’t spoil the surprise by telling you here- but this is the method I will use in a couple of weeks when I go to switch my closet to fall/winter clothes. And this is the question I bring with me when I go into a store lest I walk out with a bag full of clutter I thought I needed.

If you are trying, as I am, to order your world in order to do the dreams God is calling you to, will you send me titles of books and links to websites that are helping you? I’ll gather them up and post them later this month.

From a heart yearning to learn,

Diane

 Teach me to order my days

 that I may present to You a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90v12 NASB

For far too long I have been confused and conflicted about the messiness of the daily, weekly, and monthly doing of my life. I crave order, spending most of my spare moments tidying up, making sure my home is neat, my world uncluttered, a place for everything and everything in it’s place.

People who know me just a little live with the false assumption that I am organized.

I’m not. Not even close. And it bothers me. Not because I want to be someone I’m not but because I have things I long to accomplish. All too often I feel like a hassled hamster running as fast as I can to nowhere.

The truth is…

I work relentlessly to keep everything neat and tidy because of the disorder that wrecks havoc inside my head.

For years and years I thought something was just wrong with me. My parents are two of the most organized, efficient people I know. Not once did either of them moan about having to clean out the closet or the garage or anything, really. They never had to because they somehow managed to always keep things tidy. Both my parents seemed to walk through their days without the chaotic juggling that too often marks my way.

Why couldn’t I be like them?

On my visits home I'd watch closely to see if I could learn their secrets. When I asked about how they stay so organized they just looked at me with all that left brained logic and said, "Well, we just do it."

After much trial and error (and a crazy but effective book entitled Side Tracked Home Executives)

I did mostly manage to stick to some semblance of a routine when the kids were little. Four children will do that to you, especially if you decide, as did I, to homeschool. I made extensive chore lists for all of us, filled out every square of the monthly teacher’s organizing binder, and probably managed to actually cross off about half of what I thought I should be doing.

As one-by-one, each of my children grew up and left my neat and tidy but inwardly disorderly nest, the structure that had worked sufficiently well for organizing my home and family failed me. I dreamed of writing books, of teaching women, of studying and learning, and finally getting that degree that I wish I’d finished.

But how?

I’ve tried sheer willpower. Raised in a home that valued work, I know how to put my nose to the plow and power through. Some months it seemed that’s all I did: work, work, work.

And yet, it seemed to me that all that busy working wasn’t leading me any closer to accomplishing my dreams— those things I felt God had made me for, that He was asking me to do.

I studied Michael Hyatt’s weekly flow chart but never could figure out how to make my computer obey my wishes. So after a few frustrating attempts, I quit.

I tried reading the New York Times best-seller, Getting Things Done. I underlined and took notes and when I finally came up for air I was more confused than ever— and hadn’t gotten anything done.

Then one day as deadlines threatened to be my undoing and the confusion of my self-made chaos sank me closer to despair, I cried out to God:

What is wrong with me, Father? Why can’t I seem to keep up? Why can’t I get done  what I know You’ve called me to do?

 And I heard the gentlest truth dance across my despair:

Di, I made you just how I wanted. You’re beautiful, just right. I made you as My masterpiece for My purposes. Delight in Me as I delight in you.

 And slowly, step-by-step I have been learning that…

When I fully embrace

how He made me to be,

God enables me to accomplish

what He has assigned me to do.

I am not the logical, left-brained achiever that my parents and so many people I love and admire are. Those who, according to experts, handle the daily decisions first by analysis, then by action, followed finally by the emotions that come with a job well done.  Like this: Analysis—Action—Feelings 

A great way to get things done! But, sigh... not my way.

My way looks more like this: Feelings—Action—Analysis. A typical right-brain way of getting things done that doesn't actually result in a lot of consistent getting things done.

Can you relate? Are you one of those...? You live in your head, you thrive on passion, you drop too many balls that you meant to do but you either forgot or lost steam or just got distracted by a more compelling idea.

Passion awakens us, happiness fuels us, delight drives us to do- 

not because we should or someone said we ought to, but because we must and we want to and we will!

The action I take is always, always, always preceded by the conviction that what I am to do must be done. Now. Only after it is done can I tell you why I had to do it, and if I could have done it better, and how I’ll do it next time.

I dare to think that a whole lot of you are right-brainers like me. (I much prefer the term “creative thinkers”.) And I believe that many of you are as frustrated with your messy way of doing your days and accomplishing your dreams as I am. And maybe you’ve suffered the shame that goes with being different, of approaching love and life and dreams in a way that makes little sense even to you.

With the One who created you I want to tell you that:

God likes you just as you are. He made you that way— on purpose, for a purpose.

He made you for His purposes—all those tasks He made for you alone to do, just as He wrote in Ephesians 2v10:

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.

For the month of October I am going to be sharing with you some of the things I have learned and am learning about ordering my days— about doing and being the me He made, on purpose. I am spending this month ordering my days, not so I can please or impress anyone, but so that my world works more smoothly and my days reap the purpose I am made for.

I’ll also be writing for mothers with insight into how to develop your own child’s sense of rightness and the way of order that is unique to them. Can you imagine the gift this could be to a child? To understand and appreciate the way they are wired before they try to stuff themselves into a mold that won’t fit?

And because my way tends leans more toward the random than the regular, may I suggest that you allow me to alert you via email when I post? (simply subscribe below) That way you won’t miss the conversation and the comments as we learn together.

From a heart learning to please Him just as I am,

Diane

P.S. Can you share with us the One Thing that helps you more than any other to free you to efficiency and that lovely rightness that comes from actually doing what you’ve dreamed?

We learn best when we learn together and I crave what I learn in your comments.