As I continue to plow the land that is present and constant and as I fall asleep and rise I realize that land is so much easier to tend to when the life and noise around you is very simple.  Simplicity brings a centering and a calm that allows us to truly have the capacity to dig in and spend the hard work of continuing to plow the ground so that the seed that is there can take root and grow.

The Rhodes family has been hibernating in that lately.  Sifting through the many area’s of our lives and getting back to the core of finding the simplicity in all that we are being called to do with our time, ability, access….

Rhythm is one of those things that in anything you do needs to be present and consistent in order for everyone who encounters your life or your families life to be able to find access and a place that they can revolve around.  I’m till trying to find that personally and also within lens of our family.  I think anytime you uproot and move into a different place so many rhythms about yourself and even the functioning of your family have to be evaluated and changed in order to sustain the new area, relationship, capacity and even calling upon your life.  I think someone once said it takes a good three years to really feel established in a new place.  I pray that is not true.  I hope it’s more like a year.  I feel we are almost there.  Almost….

One decision when we uprooted almost 7 months ago was to “shed” a lot of our personal belongings.  We knew we needed to relocate from the upstate to Pawleys.  With a home still not making any progress in selling we began to search for a place in Pawleys to rent.  In our search we found a furnished home that seemed to be the perfect place for our family to function out of for the next part of our journey.  Thinking we would put our things in storage for a while we agreed to rent this house.  A few weeks later our home finally had an offer on it.  One exception, the couple wanting our home also wanted to purchase almost every piece of furniture  and decor in it.

Take a look around your home, and ask yourself  – would you be willing sell it all if given the choice? That was the question I was faced with.  Of course I live with a visionary who see’s 5 years down the road at all times and really does not like to think much in the present. He was willing in an instant to leave it ALL  – clothes and toothbrush included.  But for me it was a harder thing to process through.  So much of our “things” were pieces I had been so intentional about gathering.  Many were purchased out of years of time and sacrifice and love and waiting.  And no doubt each piece had so many memories of our family associated with it.  Again, would you sell it all if given the choice? In the end, we did sell it all (with exception of a few pieces that were too personal to part with)  And in the moment as hard as it was to let go I never really understood what the Lord was truly teaching me then and even today as I continue to walk to His voice and chose to willing follow and obey where He leads.  He was teaching me how to Let go of so many area’s of my life, even down to the things we owned.  And He was preparing me to begin to have the capacity that He knew would be needed for me and our family in the life in Pawleys He was sending us to and the things He had planned for us to be part of.

This morning I sit in an abundant, crazy, and outfitted home.  A home that has met every one of our needs as a family, as a community. And the physical blessing has cost us very little.  Our act of obedience in simplifying our lives has allowed our lives to be in turn blessed with the most amazing detailed extravagance. I’ve never lived in a place I call HOME that encompasses many things that are not mine.  I never knew what it would feel like to live on borrowed things.  Today, I must say that I’ve never lived in a physical place that has ever felt more like home to me or more free.  In the odd irony, even though I know the things in my house are really not mine as in “We don’t own” them, in every way they are ours and our family functions in the space in such an amazing way.  We love and that we get to call this place home.

Dave and I and our children are learning so much about what it means to live a simple life.  Where we function on His provision to us.  Where we have set ourselves up free of “things” to where we are really available and willing and able to ACT when we hear his voice calling and stretching us.  Living a simple life has increased our capacity in ways I never imagined possible.

I’m not suggesting everyone sells their stuff and lives off the things of others… But I am suggesting that everyone do what it takes to Live Simply.  Whatever that means for you and your family.  And as you walk in that simplicity, enjoy the amazing extravagance that only the Father can lavish on those He calls His Children.