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When it comes to
managing our hands-full lives as working church planting wives, we learned
in the last post that juggling—not balancing—our responsibilities is key. But if we
want to actually enjoy everything we
have going on, we have to take care of ourselves. And taking care of ourselves
as we work and parent and plant means setting boundaries to guard our homes and
our hearts and our time.
Boundaries are
not optional. They are life saving. Proverbs 16:17 tells us that those who
guard their ways preserve their lives. Whether relational, physical, or
technological, boundaries are good for us. Among other things, they save us
from anxiety, bitterness, and exhaustion. We are wise when we understand, as
Anne Lamott says, that “No” is a complete sentence.
For whatever
reason, setting boundaries has always come easy for me. I know my experience is
not the norm, though, and that many of you probably struggle in this area. If
that’s the case, then I want to help you envision what’s possible by looking at
three of my “b” boundaries: My bedroom, my burdens, and my busyness.
Bedroom
Remember when
your life was safe? Yeah, me neither. We can all thank church planting for
that. Our lives are noisy and scary as we move our feet through so many
unknown, uncertain, and unpredictable days. The chaos and stress of it can eat
us alive if we aren’t intentional about guarding the spaces in our homes where
peace is possible.
For me, that
place is our bedroom. A week and a half into parenthood, Ryan and I decided
that clutter and children would not be part of the décor in our room. Several
years later, we kicked the television out as well. We need our room to be a
dependable, kid-less place of solace to retreat to together at the end of the
day.
Even if
everything else in the house or in our lives is in chaos, we can count on our
room to be safe, to be quiet, to be clean, to be ours. We belong to so many
other people throughout the day, but not at night. No, that time is sacred, and
we share it with no one.
Setting rigid
boundaries on our bedroom has given, without question, the most life to our
marriage and ministry. It has also given me a place to shut out the world and
nap on Sunday afternoons—another non-negotiable in my week!
What about you? Do you and your husband
have a space you love to retreat to at the end of the day? If not, what might
you need to do to create one?
Burden
Somewhere around
the middle of year two of church planting, I remember breaking down in our
living room because I felt so guilty about not being able to spend more time helping
to grow our church. Between my full-time parenting job, my part-time
telecommuting job, and my as-I-have-time photography job, I was just plain out
of hours to be as involved in the day-to-day raising of our “fourth child” as I
thought I should be.
The self-imposed
pressure was suffocating me until my husband said something that set me free: “I don’t ever
want you to feel like it’s your responsibility to bear the burden of what
happens to Advance Church. That is for me to figure out. It’s my burden to
carry, not yours.”
Everything
changed for me after he said that, and I was able to breathe again. What a gift
it was to delineate an actual boundary for this particular burden. After just
one conversation I was able to drop the “worry about what’s going to happen to
church” ball to the floor and watch it roll right out the door. It was a
biggie, and with it out of my hands I was free to work and parent and take care
of our home and Ryan without the nagging “but-shouldn’t-I-be-doing-more-for-Advance”
pit in my stomach.
Are you feeling burdened by things God
never asked you to carry? What would it look like to let even just one of those
things go?
Busyness
I am going to let my hero,
Elisabeth Elliott, have the mic for this one. Of all the things she has taught
me through her life and writing, this perspective on time management is one of
the most transformative things I’ve learned from her during this hands-full season
of abiding in Jesus, loving my husband, raising our children, planting a
church, and excelling in my work:
“One reason we are so harried
and hurried is that we make yesterday and tomorrow our business, when all that
legitimately concerns us is today. If we really have too much to do, there are
some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to
Him and ask Him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to
do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy.”
What’s on your list that
doesn’t reeeeallly need to be there?
Have you allowed someone else to set your priorities for today? If so, what can
go? Remember, “No” is a complete sentence. You don’t always owe an
explanation.
All right, it’s your turn. What boundaries have
helped you care for yourself and for your families in the midst of working and
planting and serving the people God has set in front of you?
Kristen Lunceford is a working church planting wife. She and her family live in Las Vegas, NV, where, in 2011, God called she and her husband, Ryan, to start the first English-speaking Evangelical Covenant church in the state of Nevada. Advance Church began in their living room with five adults, a golden retriever, and a vision to see thousands of lives altered by Jesus and mobilized for his glory through a network of churches in the Las Vegas area and the Western United States. She works full-time for Academic Innovations. You can connect with Kristen on her website, www.kristenlunceford.com, Facebook, or Twitter.
