Christian Life – Rebekah Wright Online

Intentional But Generous

March 3, 2015March 3, 2015 rebekahwrightonline

My family moved to Wales two weeks ago. That is a reality I am still having a hard time grasping. This thing we have been working toward for 4 years is actually happening now. God has worked in some amazing ways and our last 2 months have been crazy good saying good-bye to our life in the US and hello to our new life in the UK.

In the past two weeks we have had an ever-opening door on our apartment as we have invited people over and welcomed in teens that need a place to talk and a willing heart to listen. To add to all that crazy goodness, our baby girl started school for the first time this week! A new routine is starting in our home and a new phase of family life.

This past week has been amazing, but very full. I decided I needed to go out and decompress and just spend some time alone. Brian graciously said, “GO!” (I might be a tad bit hard to live with when I get to this overloaded state)

When I need to get my priorities back in line and organize my life, it usually goes like this:

Go get coffee
Start with a small project that will give me a sense of accomplishment

So that’s what I did. I took a bus ride to Starbucks and started deleting old photos off my phone – tell me I’m not the only one that waits until I my storage is full to finally delete those photos that have already been on my computer for months. Anyway, as I did this I found a screenshot of a quote that spoke to my heart right where it was at this exact moment.

“Guard your time fiercely. Be generous with it. But be intentional about it.”

Generous but intentional. This is my heart right now. I have made “Simplify” my word of 2015. With this I have wanted to be intentional with what I have, spend, eat, and probably most importantly- invest my time in. But I also want to be GENEROUS. Oh, how I want to be generous with my time. It is one of my greatest fears to take this amazing opportunity to live and minister in Wales and live for myself instead of God.

I love my iphone, my laptop, and I love talking- but I think with a pen a paper. So I got out a notebook and got intentional. 6 full pages and a major cramp in my hand later, I had an idea of what guarding my time and being generous would look like.

This was my process:

I wrote “What is Important?” across the top of the first page. I started with God and then moved on to people. Under people I wrote out every name that was important to me. People I wanted to invest time in, people I wanted to impact, people I wanted to get to know better, people I love and people I want God to make me love. Under people came my health, my home, and my personal interests.

After I wrote out everything that I have a desire to spend real time on, I moved on to the next page – “What Do These Priorities Look Like?” The names and things written on the first list were goals, but they weren’t a plan. So on this page I started really dreaming. What would it look like to really put time into these areas? Discipleship, dates, budgeting, letter writing, and many more real tangible ideas.

Then comes the putting it all together step. If I had been at home I probably would have gotten out a wipe off board or some cute post- it notes. But I worked with what I had: paper and pen. So I ripped up little slips of paper and wrote an activity or event on each slip. Then I made a week-long schedule and placed the slips of paper where they fit in the week. I intentionally placed the most important items first and worked through my slips.

Will my week really go as perfectly as I have it laid out right now? Goodness no! But I am taking a step in being intentional but generous with my time.More important than following my schedule, it is my prayer that I let God guide my time this week and make it count. May you have a meaningful week too!

-Rebekah

Healthy Soul

How I Intentionally Plan my Week

March 3, 2015 rebekahwrightonline

When I need to get my priorities back in line and organize my life, it usually goes like this:

Go get coffee
Start with a small project that will give me a sense of accomplishment

“Guard your time fiercely. Be generous with it. But be intentional about it.”

This was my process:

-Rebekah

Uncategorized

Simplify

January 6, 2015January 2, 2022 rebekahwrightonline

2015 is here. It’s brand new and clean. I love the New Year. To be perfectly honest, I feel a little funny about this new year. My family is preparing to move to Wales in the very near future. I feel like my life is on hold until then. Like, I shouldn’t set any goals for 2015 until we get there and get settled. So I’m changing things up a little bit this time around.

I have a word for 2015: Simplify.

This month we will decide exactly what we want to ship with us overseas and get rid of the rest. Going through a bunch of tubs that have been sitting in storage for 4 years has got me considering what is really needed in my life.

My thought process started with physical things, but I also want to see simplicity spilling over into every area of my life: my schedule, my eating, my communication, my kids lives.

Brian and I spent time on December 31^st talking this over and he suggested we make Hebrews 12:1 our verse for the year.

Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

I love it. I love that we have a shared verse of the year. I love that we are on the same page in life right now. I love the imagery this verse has in it. This year I want to “strip off weights” that are only slowing me down.

I’m actually getting really excited thinking about it. But the more excited I get, the more ideas I have and the more complicated things become in my mind. So I know if I am really going to grasp this whole “simple” thing this year, I need to set my focus on the right thing. Which is why verse 2 is such a cool follow up:

We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.

So that’s what it’s about this year. Keeping my eyes on Jesus. Living simple. But my heart is a list-making heart, so I just couldn’t stop there. I had to sit down and write out some actual goals.

Goal 1: Memorize Hebrews 12:1…like really memorize it. Get it in my heart, head, and throughout my being.

Goal 2: Memorize Hebrews chapter 12. EVERY. WORD. OF. IT.

Goal 3: Focus on EXPERIENCES more than material things. This is kind of abstract and I don’t know exactly how I will measure it- but we’ll see where it goes.

Goal 4: Simple Eating –

More water Less coffee (I type this while sitting in starbucks- this will be a challenge people!)

More fruit Less sugar

More real food Less processed food

More moving Less sitting

Goal 5: Simple Evenings – As much as possible I am going to try to go technology free from 3pm to 8pm. This idea is not original to me, but I love it.

So there it is, my goals I wasn’t going to set. I loved blogging what God taught be about loving people in 2014, and I am so excited to see where this year takes me. I’m excited for the second year of inviting you to experience it with me!

-Rebekah

Uncategorized

Let Love Cover It

February 5, 2014January 2, 2022 rebekahwrightonline

I recently got my feelings hurt. Not something that I dwell on too often, but this time it got to me. I went to bed feeling down and quite honestly a little grumpy. I woke up the next morning with a sharpie note on a napkin from my husband.

It simply said, “Love covers a multitude of sin. Let love win.”

I’ve made it very clear that my goal for 2014 is to love people. I have a verse for the year – 1 Peter 4:8 and I talked about loving people deeply. Let me be honest here – when I set out to love people, I wasn’t thinking about people who would hurt me. When I said I wanted to love people I meant I want to do cute things to show people I’m thinking about them, I want to be patient with my kids and husband, I want to build deeper relationships with those I don’t know well, I want to lift people up in prayer. I had dreams of showing love to people that life has been hard on. I wanted to not judge people on their past, but love the person they are in the present. Sounds good doesn’t it?

But I failed to put into my goal and thinking the last part of that verse about loving deeply- for love covers a multitude of sins. See I had no problem with love covering a multitude of past sins, or sins committed against someone else. But what about those sins that others commit that involve me?

There it was on a napkin placed in the bathroom at 7 am. Let love cover a multitude of sins. A part of my goal that I knew I had to include. And by loving people who hurt me, I don’t mean develop thicker skin or remaining silent. I think both of those things are necessary and appropriate at times. But sometimes loving someone means having a difficult discussion with them about how their actions impacted you. Sometimes loving someone means not just letting a sin slide, it means facing it head on. But facing it head on covered in LOVE. When do I know which situations need grace to let love cover it and not address it and which ones need to be addressed head on in love? I believe that’s the Holy Spirit’s job to tell me, and if it’s His job to tell me – I better be bathing the entire situation in prayer to know what He wants.

January down, hard lesson number one down. Here’s to 11 more months of discovering what God is teaching me when I say I want to love people.

Rebekah