Our Phone Rarely Rings
When we began our journey to simplicity, my husband and I spent a lot of time clearing the clutter from our home. This felt good, and it encouraged us that we were on the right path. The process was deliberate and the results were immediate.
Less deliberately, and almost consciously, we soon realized that the clutter-clearing was carrying over to our social lives as well. We began to distance ourselves from relationships that hindered our simplicity.
There was no specific moment when we decided to do this. It just seemed to be part of the natural progression of simplifying our lives. We simply began decluttering from our lives those friends and acquaintances who judged us for our simple and frugal lifestyle, or whose relationship with us centered around social obligations we no longer needed or wanted as part of our lives.
So what has this meant as the years have gone by? Our phone doesn't ring very often. Whole weekends can pass where no one calls. But that's just fine with us.
Because of this, the friendships we have retained are that much more special and cherished. And we are able to truly keep our focus where we want it to be: God, each other, our children, our church, our close friends and extended family, and our work.
Head over to Keeper Of The Home for more Living Simply Saturdays.
8 comments:
A true friend is a gem. I just wrote on my blog (before reading yours) about co-workers vs. friends. I wasn't sure if was going to come across to harsh or if people would get what I mean. Then I read your blog today. I think you would get it.
I can also go the whole weekend without my phone ringing and in fact, when my best friend calls me on the weekend I am usually shocked. I am actually very content at staying home, just us.
If they judged you for doing something that worked for your family and were convicted of doing, those were fairweather friends. :( A true friend is there in sunshine and rain! :D
Friendships can suck a lot of precious time... they have to be really worth my time to spend much effort on the relationship. Family first.
This is wonderful. We also distanced ourselves from negative relationships. When my phone rings, it's always 1 of 3 people and 1 of those is my mom. The other one is my husband's mom. That last one is the friend I have that calls me to let me know what everyone else is doing and ask me if I'll be there---I usually won't because I already had plans with my kids.
It is nice to make a choice like this. We haven't exactly made the choice, but we went in a different direction than our friends. We are now family centered.
I enjoy hanging out with friends on occasion, but it is always with my family as well.
I actually don't enjoy going out with a group of ladies if it is meant to be "mommy" time (no kids). I don't know why, but I can't relax and feel that it's right to be spending time away from my family.
Sorry about the blog! I didn't mean to go on like that, and I hope I didn't seem negative, I guess I'm just a happy homebody!
I think it's important for all Christians to reach out to people with different ways of doing things....why would you want to be isolated?
It's such a hard area for me to balance. I really want to be free to focus on my family, and not to be trying to juggle so many friendships and relationships that I am doing it all poorly. It's far more worthwhile to have fewer true friendships, with real fellowship, than to have many shallow friendships.
I also want to be open to whom God has placed in my life, even if the relationship is a harder one. One thing that has helped me is to take time listing relationships and praying over it, asking who God would have me focus on more in a particular season.
Thanks so much for joining in Living Simply Saturdays! I hope you don't mind, but I changed your link to go straight to this post, rather than your homepage, so that those reading would be sure to find your wonderful post! :)
Kate-
I am going to start calling you more often, lol! My phone rings off the hook, but that is probably due to the face that thanks to the military we have friends all over the world! I love days when the phone doesn't ring though, I get so much done!
Toni
Post a Comment