What size are your margins?

When I read blogs I want to re-read and think more about, I often copy and paste them into a word document and print them out. I want to use as little paper as possible, so I delete all pictures, I set the line spacing to single and I set the margins to 'narrow'. I try to fit it all onto one sheet of paper.

I'm realising that's what I've done with my life too. I've crammed as much as I can in. The margins are narrow. There is no extra spacing between lines or paragraphs. No room to breathe between school and after school clubs, homework, piano practice etc etc.

How much can you get onto one page - one day?

Then when the 'extras' come along, they have to be crammed in too - shoe horned into the narrow margins.

Then all of a sudden, an email telling you someone's moved your crayons, and you flip. It's the last straw.

They're just crayons for goodness sake.

They can be moved back.

But not if there are no margins.

Or your child has fallen over and scraped their knee. But there are no margins for long cuddles to soothe the tears. So they just have to be got into the car as quickly as possible so that you're not late for the next thing.

Since when did getting to the next thing become so toweringly important?

My inbox gets crammed with more email than I can read or process.  I have 170 'starred' emails that I'm supposedly going to go back to when I have time.

Mail through my door goes straight to recycling (unless it's a lovely handwritten letter from a friend of course😀).  I skim read blogs and think 'I must take time to reflect on that' but of course that time never comes.

And so now my body is telling me: slow down.

My heart rate, timed by God to have margins to speed up when the pressure is on, has got stuck in 5th gear. I've spent so much time stressed. So much time always trying to do ten more things in my day, that top speed has become normal and then there's nothing left to give.

One of my husband's missions has been to impress upon me that rest is not only good but also important and necessary.  He points out that it actually makes it into the ten commandments. God doesn't just think it's a good idea. It's so important He COMMANDS us to rest one day in seven.

But, in Christian-ese that has translated into - get to church early on Sunday so you can set up for Sunday school,  take the Sunday school class, speak to 7 other people about various church-related activities you are planning, serve the tea and coffee and make sure you've said encouraging and supportive things to everyone you know is going through a hard time.  It's exhausting all this 'rest'!

So, what do good margins look like?  I don't know yet but I want to discover and I'm on a journey, a mission to find out. I want to go back to discovering that being a Christian is good news, not exhausting, demanding news.

I think it's going to involve not letting myself be intimidated by all the things everyone else has posted on Facebook. It'll mean being content with having less and doing less than others. And, Heaven - forbid, it may involve even saying 'no' when I'm not actually stressed to the max but because I don't want to get to 'stressed to the max'.

I've read Psalm 23 in a new light lately:

'He makes me lie down in green pastures'

Sometimes, when He's watched us strive and rush about for long enough, He lets us get to a point where we have to rest.

Thank You Good Shepherd for making me lie down and rest. Thank you that You are doing a good work of restoring my soul. I praise You. I pray for my brothers and sisters reading this post that they too would be set free to simply lie down and enjoy the blessings of the green pastures You bring in our lives.  It doesn't all have to be striving. Amen.