Celebrate the Fullness of You

My sister and I have had several conversations recently, processing through her life.

There was a time where she would have defined herself as a systems person. “I like systems.”

But now she has reached a point where she has a variety of things she enjoys.

• She still likes developing systems.

• She likes teaching her children.

• She likes shepherding her children, spending time with them, talking to them.

• She likes going to taekwondo.

• She likes youth theater: bringing her children, designing sets, attending shows.

• She likes self-improvement, whether in cooking or in boundaries or in physical strength.

• She likes spending time with friends.

• She likes creating art (most recently with watercolor pens).

• She likes prayer.

• She likes investing.

• She likes reviewing books for the family business.

Does this feel like an odd mix to you?

It felt like an odd mix to her.

But as we talked it through, we pictured it almost like her life is a pie, and all of these likes are slices, and together they create a beautiful whole.

It’s better to be a whole pie than just a slice.

As we talked, she said, “I really want people to know that they don’t have to be single-dimensional! They don’t have to be just a homeschooling mom, for example.”

Is this a universal word?

Perhaps not. If you’re nursing twins, or you have four children under six, or your spouse is deployed, or you’re caring for a family member with a serious illness, or your adopted child struggles with RAD … any one of these might actually be enough.

This isn’t meant to be a guilt or shame message.

If you are in a place where a single thing takes up all of your time and attention, be at peace. Like the dime that, when you hold it up to your eye, it blocks your entire vision, but when you hold it at arm’s length, you can see the world around you, you will eventually have space to see again.

Those other slices of your life do not have to be gone forever, but may be simply on hold for this time.

What is it Psalm 1:3 says?

“[The one who delights in the law of the LORD] is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.”

Yields fruit in season.

Not “yields fruit perpetually,” but “yields fruit in season.”

And if you are in a season where you get to yield fruit, then I bless you to enjoy all the pieces of the pie of your life.

Lord God, I thank you for Ecclesiastes 4:6 that says, “One hand full of rest is better than two fists full of labor and striving after wind.” I ask, Lord, that we would live a life that incorporates all the pieces of ourselves that you celebrate: the creativity and the productivity and the rest and rejuvenation and the delight and the focus. Thank you, Lord!

Put everything in order,

Amy Joy

P.S. My podcast, the Make Prayer Beautiful podcast, reminds me at times of walking with my sister or a friend, talking about what I’m thinking about.