Day Eight // The Best Yes
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Consider the Trade / Ch. 8 – Pages 92 to 100
[divider type=”dotted” color=”gray”]Today’s post comes to us from guest blogger, Betsy Gettis.
[divider type=”dotted” color=”gray”]My job as a member of my church’s creative team comes with intensely busy seasons. One of those particular seasons is Christmas.
This year, our church had six Christmas Eve services featuring a stage that included a giant wall made of refurbished barnwood, and twenty live Christmas trees mounted in buckets that we had covered in white cable-knit sweaters, along with a pre-service experience made up of a live nativity, a photobooth, family activity packs, hot chocolate, cookies, and more. The weeks leading up to these services were busy, to say the least. It was a month of working more hours than I was supposed to in order to get everything ready, all while attempting to get my gifts purchased and wrapped and juggling the first full month of filling orders from my Etsy shop.
I thrive in chaos, in the business of life, but I’d be lying if I said that I fully enjoyed the Christmas season this year. While there were many choices that I couldn’t fully control because of work responsibilities, there were others that I let control me, without any consideration of the trade I was making. In a season all about how peace came to earth in the form of a tiny baby, I found myself unable to find a shred of it.
I don’t know about you, but in those busy seasons of life, I often find myself saying “well if I can just make it past the next week, it’ll slow down.” But does it really? And if I’m being totally honest, I know whose fault that is. I often find it difficult to make room for the Best Yes and instead, believe that I can carry the weight of every Yes on my shoulders, balancing it all and completing every task that’s thrown my way.
“Like a tree, a woman can’t carry the weight of two seasons simultaneously. In the violent struggle of trying, she’ll miss every bit of joy each season promises to bring.” – Lysa TerKeurst
I think I get overwhelmed by having to make choices. I can completely relate to Lysa’s struggle to let go of things in her closet. I can spend thirty minutes staring at my closet and only get rid of two things. And usually, I end up making something my family and I have deemed a “nulltimatum”…no choice at all. This indecisiveness pours over into other areas of my life, at the expense of having peace and fully experiencing the joy that any season can offer.
But that’s not what God wants for us. He doesn’t hope that we go through life only half-experiencing His best because we can’t give up the clutter and release the mess to make room for what’s better.
So, friend, the task at hand is not only to discern the Best Yes, but also to consider what we can trade so that we don’t end up letting it become a stressed yes. How can you release some clutter in your life this week?
[divider type=”dotted” color=”gray”]Betsy is a blogger, photographer, etsy-shop owner, and founder of The Peony Project. She lives in southeastern PA and loves Jesus, coffee, the ocean, and snail mail. You can find her at Heavens to Betsy, where she writes about faith and life and everything in between.
Did you enjoy her post? Be sure to leave a comment below and connect with Betsy on Facebook, Instagram, her own blog, and see what she’s selling on Etsy.
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