Live simply, so others may simply live.
It sounds so...well... 'simple' doesn't it?! Yet living this out practically in the every day of our lives is something that I'm being challenged with more and more.
How should we do this? Should we apply this principle to everything, or just to things that we look at from now on? How can we communicate this well to the girls so that they 'own' the idea as well, and don't resent any of the changes?
As we look at another major shift for our family (I can hear the groans from those readying their address books for yet another layer of liquid paper!), the idea of what's next for our family and how we can get our priorities in line with God's is a clear focus.
I don't know yet, what's in store for us, but in line with the sentiments from very good friends and mentors, and with little pieces of inspiration from others such as Minimalist Mum, we're going to try to keep the 'main thing the main thing'. The imminent move is giving me cause to view our choices in a new light...
So...what does it all mean?
A paradigm shift for all of us.
What form that takes and how we will live it out, I'm not sure yet - plenty of prayer yet to come on that front...some initial thoughts:
- an obvious and easily implemented one is things like buying with a conscience (ie fair trade coffee and chocolate etc.)
- possibly reviewing companies that we deal with for their ethics and policies (ie Superannuation investments etc.)
- raising our own awareness of issues (this could initially be as easy as watching some news that reports on things outside Australia, rather than the typically very insular news broadcasts on the main channels)
- spending time learning about other cultures with the girls (and hopefully visit some of our sponsor kids in the next couple of years as part of that awareness process)
3 comments:
Hey Ros, I love hearing what you're up to, and definitely interested to hear about what your next adventure will be.
We are definitely trying to live more simply. I'd love to just live out of a caravan for a year or three, to help the kids see that you can live without a houseful of stuff. Unfortunately with the kids' current medical issues it isn't possible, but maybe in the future. We are trying to declutter the house, not let the kids trawl through advertising catalogues, and are trying to get them to see that other people in the world live far worse than we do. It is hard when we are surrounded by it though.
Hi Ros, Good luck with your decisions such a shame to have to move so soon after building your new home. I hope you can sell your home so you can move on to what ever God wants you to do next. I guess on the positive side at least you will be closer to your families.
Really keen to hear how you live this out Ros. I would like to try and encourage our family to live more simply too.
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