Why is simplicity so complicated?

Over a year and a half ago, my husband and I were trying to catch our breath.  He felt the financial pressure of being the primary breadwinner.  I felt the frantic race of keeping up with church activities, dance, and housekeeping.  Those feelings were all compounded by our ambitious volunteering with the Parks and Rec.  Not wanting to play favorites, when Dad volunteered to coach our older girl’s basketball team, Mom volunteered to coach the younger’s.  Have your chuckle at the idea I could potentially coach a sports team and let’s move on…

I picked up a devotional book on simplicity and we decided to complete the six-week course during Lent.  It turned out that it wasn’t so simple.  It took six months to finish the book and the process of assessing our lifestyle, our gifts, the things from which we take the greatest joy and satisfaction, and our hopes for contributing to, rather than exploiting, the world in which we live.  It might have been safer to cruise right through the book in six weeks.  Our pursuit of simplicity found us having a third child and putting our house on the market.

You’ve probably heard that it’s a buyer’s market out there.  It is.  We had hoped that we could pursue simplicity without actually catching it, I guess, because our decision to downsize was supposed to be dependent on God sending us a buyer for our current house.  Maybe it was the sleep deprivation from the new baby, maybe it was confidence in the marketability of our current home, but I honestly believe it was more along the lines of Providence.  We are closing this morning on that little brick house my husband’s been eyeing for the last five years; it’s set on a beautiful, wooded pasture just 2 miles from our current house.  It met all our criteria and then some.  The kids won’t even change schools, and we can raise chickens, have up to 3 livestock, and have all the room in the world for a giant garden.

It's already cuter than this - with a brand new, black roof.

I believe we’re following the calling of the Holy Spirit.  I believe we went through this process thoughtfully.  Still, it has been surprising to both of us how complicated this whole simplicity thing is.   Somehow while it seems like it should be the easiest thing ever to simplify, it is actually fraught with risk.  It’s taken a lot of courage and we’re just going to continue to rely on one another and listen for the still, small voice of God to show us the way.

I don’t know when we’ll be moved.  I don’t know how much stuff we’re going to have to unburden ourselves from.  I don’t know who is going to buy our old house.  But I know we’re headed where we’re supposed to be.  And I’m excited for the journey.  And I wouldn’t change a thing.  OK, I’d take a buyer…anyone?

Are any of you wise or sensible? Then show it by living right and by being humble and wise in everything you do. James 3:13