Thursday, June 26, 2014

Baby Steps

It's hard to believe that in less than a month that phrase will take on a whole new meaning. Baby LJ will be here before we know it!

Because my due date clock is counting down, my husband and I have been working a lot on preparing our home and ourselves for our new bundle of joy. I have done some serious nesting in our apartment and have purged through almost everything we own, with the exception of our desk.

(You can check out more on that journey at my other blog, First Step Organizing. Over the past several months I have dove into podcasts and blogs on organizing and have found myself truly inspired. It is about my journey so far and my desire to help others take their first step towards less clutter. Check it out!)

Aside from just nesting, I have also spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be a wife/mom/woman of God. I always find myself looking into Proverbs 31. And many times I find myself discouraged that I am not even remotely close to the woman in the passage. I typically end up making excuses for myself of why that's acceptable, but after some recent prayer and reflection I have felt like God is calling me to start measuring up.

I really love this parallel of what being a Proverbs 31 woman actually looks like. When I read through the list and really thought about it, I realized that this woman is not Superwoman. Instead, she is a woman who is doing what Christ calls her to do in the different areas of her life.

So what does this have to do with baby steps?

As I said, I organized and cleaned through our home and donated piles of stuff to a local shelter. With one action, I "extended my hand to the poor," "looked well to the ways of my household," and "worked with my hands in delight." I was accomplishing some of these tasks of the Proverbs 31 woman, and it was easy!

This motivated me even more to see what God was going to call me to next. God's refinement is never easy, and it became clear that He was shining a light on an area that I have long wanted to ignore: my spending habits. Now I am not a super shopper who loves to spend all day at the mall, but I do have a compulsive weakness for the clearance aisle at Target. After finally acknowledging that yes, God was calling me to check myself. I finally cracked open the Dave Ramsey series we have had in our closet. Lesson 1 is about baby steps.

While this should have been enough to light the bulb, it wasn't until my husband and I were watching a sermon last night and the preacher talked about God showing up when we step up. He said that it doesn't take running a marathon by yourself, but just taking small baby step at a time. Cue lightbulbs!

This journey to being a Proverbs 31 woman is going to be a marathon. But it isn't one I have to run by myself. It is one that can happen one baby step at a time. All I need to do is rely on His strength to get me to my goal.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us"  Hebrews 12:1

No comments:

Post a Comment