Summer in a Picture-Frame: Nos and Yeses
Sometimes the best gatherings are the impromptu ones—the ones no one plans but that just happen, spilling out beyond your driveway the way joy breaks open the confines of your heart. These are the days of outgrown clothes and sunglasses finding a new home, giving away what could bless another, chalky rainbows filling the driveway, super-charged power wheels carrying kids up and down the sidewalk, sharing the latest family news and prayer requests, admiring each other’s bikes, cheering on the kids learning to ride. These are the days when the parameters of yards matter little, when help and advice and tools are readily shared, of meaningful conversations with new neighbors and deeper connections with the ones we already know, of keeping watch over each other’s kids. These are the days of running through sprinklers together, celebrating each other’s birthdays, sharing trampolines and pools, and escaping the heat in each other’s houses. These are the days of together.
We are all just normal, average, everyday people, but when we congregate in a driveway or join each other for neighborhood bike rides, life is more meaningful. It’s contagious, this sort of gathering, and life-giving.
I’ve started evaluating more in my life on whether or not it is life-giving. It’s kind of like Marie Condo’s Netflix show “Tidying Up,” where the mantra is if it doesn’t bring you joy, it goes. If a practice or routine, schedule or activity or agenda, is not life-giving, I do not want to feed it my time. Things that are not life-giving can be all consuming, like an animal with an insatiable hunger.
Mindless scrolling through Facebook, frantic never-ending running from activity to activity for the kids, making every night before bed a Netflix night, unrealistic expectations of how clean my house should be—these I have found are not life-giving.
On the other hand, creating margin, open space, I find to be immensely life-giving. I want to habitually carve out time to sow into relationships—foremost with God, the giver of all life, and then with my family, those near (proximity-wise) me, and those dear to me (this encompasses those who may not be related or live near me).
In the same vein, I am also intentional about the amount of time I give to work and rest, as true rest is life-giving. Ironically, when I work out of a place of rest, and learn how to rest in ways that are actually restful and life-giving to me, my work is more productive. I also increase my ability to be present in my relationships.
Mike Breen discusses this in his book Building a Discipling Culture. He writes, “The fundamental revelation Jesus is bringing to John 15: We are created to work. But we are designed to work from rest; not rest from work” (Loc 2981). He then unpacks what rest is. Rest re-creates us, energizes us, reconnects us relationally. Through rest we can see more clearly the gifts God has given us (our relationships are unsurpassed by any other gift) and accentuate our ability to appreciate them (Loc 2989, 2995). He continues, “From this nourishing energy our work can flow, rather than pushing and pushing and pushing. By operating from rest, we work from the Lord’s energy and not our own” (Loc 2995). Rest plugs us into a power source greater than we can find contained within us—we become more fruitful, more present, more life-giving to those around us.
What re-creates and re-energizes you?
Rest for me can look like reading a good book, writing, learning Skyfall on the piano, going for a walk with my family, being out in nature, baking a fun, new recipe, sitting outside with my husband after the kids are in bed and talking, a good heart-to-heart-conversation, HIIT workouts, listening to my favorite worship music, spending time praying and just listening to God, reading the First 15 Devotional, missional community nights, investing in relationships with our neighbors, and of course, the impromptu gatherings in our neighborhood.
Rest also means sometimes choosing to do these things when there are still baskets of laundry to be folded and put away, toys to be picked up, dinner to be started, counters to be washed, or dishes to be emptied in the dishwasher to make room for the dishes overflowing the sink.
This past weekend was one of those times. Evidence of the prior day’s birthday party nagged me to finish cleaning. The dishes from breakfast were still on the table and the dishwasher was full of clean dishes. And yet, I chose to lay the work aside for a while and read. So I sat out on our front step, drinking in remnant rays of the sun, which was threatening to disappear again for the next 10 days, sipping my blueberry yogi tea for all the energy its ginseng had to offer. My book of choice was Shauna Neiquist’s Present over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living. Neiquist confides that “the no I said today is making space for yes, something I haven’t made space for in a long time” (119). I pondered how a no creates margin for another yes. Likewise, every time I say yes to something, I dismiss as less important something else. A yes confirms a no even as a no makes space for a yes.
When I say yes to the busyness of running to an endless number of kid activities each week, yes to my perfectionistic ideas of how clean my house should be before I invite anyone in to escape the heat or rain, I am inadvertently saying no to the impromptu gatherings that are so life-giving. I am trading what I think I want for what the deepest part of me truly desires—authenticity and connection. Brave and beautiful togetherness.
This summer has been a summer of nos and yeses—and I’m learning to be more intentional with both. I’m learning to make choices because I choose to, not out of obligation or default. I’m learning to weigh whether something is life-giving, and to be better at choosing the things that are.
I wanted to capture this summer—a snapshot, if you will, not because it’s picture-perfect, but because I want to remember it. We put things in picture frames so we can remember, yes? In this slower season I can practice choosing with intention so I am better equipped to choose when we are in the throes of homeschooling—I want to remember that. The sweetness of friendships being forged and strengthened over the summer—I want to treasure forever. The power of choosing our yes’s and no’s—I want to take that with me. The discernment to see what is life-giving and what is not—I want to continue to grow in.
Dear Father, you are present in your relationship with us. Teach us how to be present with you, and present with those around us. Open our eyes to see how our relationships are the greatest gifts. Grow our ability to choose what to say yes to and what to say no to. Walk with us on this journey and help us make this summer be one worth remembering. Amen.
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