Don't Sweat The Small Stuff...."

and much of life is small stuff. This week has been a busy one, a fun kind of busy. Melanie, Mei-Ling, Debbie and I have had fun during the day doing some shopping, going out for lunch, sitting and talking for hours, just playing with the baby. In the evenings Steven and Priscilla have been coming over and we talk and play with Elizabeth. As you notice housework has not been mentioned. We have been eating simply, doing dishes and that's about it. Oh wait, I did dust when it seemed the dust was approaching the stage of just begging to write you name in it.

This week, cleaning the house comes under the heading of "don't sweat the small stuff". Its what it is. In life there are priorities, moments that cannot be recovered ever. Moments in time that are just not "do- overs". People and relationships are so much more important than having an organized pantry or a laundry room that looks like it should be in a magazine. Magazine homes are often not of the laid back comfortable home variety. Too much emphasis on having things perfect makes the people around you feel uncomfortable.

One time I went to a meal where the hostess would not let anyone help her, soon you could see she was feeling overwhelmed, soon her demeanour changed and she started complaining about how much work she had to do to plan the meal, since she worked outside the home, soon she made everyone wish that they were eating peanut butter sandwiches in the park rather than at her house. She wouldn't let anyone help clean up, (you felt as though you couldn't do anything to suit her standards) so she continued to feel overwhelmed and to this day, that meal is a reference point of others when her name is mentioned. She sweated all the small stuff....for no good reason.

I love a good ordered home, but have to laugh a bit when the home is perfect and the family life is a mess....what is the priority there ? Fixing the easy stuff, the stuff that doesn't take real sacrifice or real personal effort isn't what might count in the end. It's not a legacy of value.

What good is a perfectly ordered linen closet that took two hours work, when your children are harboring so much anger against you for making "things" a priority. Take 1 1/2 of those hours and play with your children or work out some issues with your adult children, maybe write a heartfelt letter that may just mend some fences. Maybe even create a romantic evening with your husband, a date night. A picnic basket filled with a romantic meal. I think Emilie Barnes has great ideas about making "Love Baskets" for ones husband.

I think this is sort of what Jesus was talking about when he spoke about Mary and Martha. Martha was missing out on the big stuff, by "sweating the small stuff" the things that will not matter one bit after we are dead . The small stuff will never lead to a profound legacy.

Cleaning our house, having a well ordered house, is part of life. We need to do that, but making these things be our focus, the thing that defines us, might just be cutting our purpose in life down a few notches. Making PERFECT order of our house take precedence over creating healthy relationships may not be the best choice in the long run. The Martha type Perfect ordered home probably is not a higher calling than building strong family relationships where the children and husband know they are first priority and mom is not sweating the small stuff all the time, feeling

self inflicted pressure to have all things perfect.