Joanne Heim: Monday, Monday, Monday

Nice to meet you

Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Joanne and I’ve been blogging for many years under the name The Simple Wife (you can see all of my old posts under the archives or by clicking on any of the categories that interest you). I love receiving comments from you and try to respond to each one personally. I hope you’ll visit often!

Wow! does moving turn everything upside down and inside out. It's fun, but even though the house is pretty much put together (well, the visible parts of it anyway), it takes awhile for the living, breathing parts of it to settle in.

That would be me.

I wake up every day with sort of a loose plan in my head of how the day will go, and I have yet to have it go according to that plan.

Oh well. Flexibility is something I've learned a bit of during the past year. I'm still not super bendy, but I'm definitely more flexible and less like to break than I was a year ago.

All that to say that the basement is still kind of scary. Even though the pens and pencils and highlighters and scissors and 20 bottles of school glue are all now neatly separated into their own bins. My craft table is no where near craft ready. But I'm just not going to worry about it. It'll get there when it gets there.

(See? Such progress!)

Instead, I've sat out on the grass on a giant blanket and visited with friends in the shade while eating popsicles, sat on the deck with Toben in the morning to have just one more cup of coffee, sat on the couch and caught up with other friends, watched my girls and their friends run all around the backyard and out the gate with buckets and cups in hand to catch little fish in the creek behind the house, sat in my chair and just looked and looked and looked around my house, gone to a friends' house for brunch to meet her newest daughter and catch up with other friends there.

And all that sitting and catching up is way more important than whatever's waiting in the basement.

It's good.

And it is Monday and I have been hanging on to Ephesians 1:8 these past couple of weeks: "How well he understands me and knows what is best for me at all times." The other one that's been sticking in my head is this one, which is going to be my Memory Monday verse this week:

Don't know about you, but I tend to think of myself as the "blessed controller of all things" all too often. But that's NOT my job. It's God's job. Why? It ties into Ephesians 1:8, I think. Most of the time I don't understand myself or know what's best. So any controlling I do isn't going to result in what is best.

When it comes right down to it, good isn't good enough. I want God's BEST. And so I'm going to have to continually lay down my own desire to control this, that, and everything else and let him do it.

He's the blessed controller. Not the mean controller. Not the confining controller. Not the nit-picky controller. The blessed controller.

Of all things. Not just big things. Not just small things. Of all things.

And so to come back again to the lesson he's been teaching me again and again these past months: I can trust him no matter what.

If you're learning something this week, feel free to leave a comment or a link below. And if you want to learn more about Memory Monday, click on the link in the sidebar.

***

The loose plan for today? Go for a run. Eat breakfast on the deck. Call the trash company. Call Mom. Help Audrey do her laundry. I hesitate to put the basement on the list because I have everyday and it hasn't happened. So we'll just wait and see. It'll be what it is and no matter what, God is the blessed controller of it!

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Comments

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I keep putting my office/craft room/dumping ground on the list - yet it still sits undone. I keep thinking I need a day if not four hours to get thru most of it. I suppose I can do small parts at a time and live with it being in chaos for a while longer. And I do think of myself as the "controller" too. Thank you for the verse and the reminder that He is in control. :-)

Posted by: Yvette | July 12, 2010 at 06:35 AM

I Love following your journey to return back home.....I am living vicariously through you!

Must almost seem like a daydream!?!

Enjoy,
Julie

Posted by: Julie Hoagland | July 12, 2010 at 08:24 AM

I am so there with you on the "controller" thing. I am slowly starting to become a "whatever the day holds" kind of girl. I thought it would make me crazy not to have a plan and stick to it, but it is actually freeing. Don't get me wrong, I like having appointments and things set in the calendar that is a necessity no matter what, however I can let the day move forward as it may because God has taught me how to live in that freedom. It is amazing the lessons God has taught me in this past 18 months. I am (slowly) realizing what is most important. Sitting on the grass with friends, stopping over for a quick catch up, even though there are a million things to do. Who cares that there are dust bunnies multiplying in the corner... I am going to sit and laugh with friends.
Thank you for the verse this morning, it sounds like all of us OCD girls needed that :)

Posted by: Kristin | July 12, 2010 at 08:31 AM

Wow! These two verses I needed to hear this morning for I have been feeling quite overwhelmed...after months of activity overdrive...there has been a small respite in the activities and now I'm looking around at many things not done in the process (oh..daily things were done..but deep cleaning, organizing, decluttering, maintenance...were not). And hence the over-whelmedness. So, so good to remember that HE is the Blessed controller of all things and understands & knows me well & what is best for me at all times.

Thanks for the encouragement. Kathleen

Posted by: Kathleen Jaeger | July 12, 2010 at 08:34 AM