Total Family MAKEOVER
By Melissa Spoelstra
28 SMG Solutions
Throughout the pages of Scripture , we see an emphasis on the need for rest . In the very beginning , God spoke the world into creation but then intentionally stopped working . He separated light from darkness ; put the sun , moon , and stars in place ; and created birds and fish , in addition to all plants and animals .
Then he made man and woman and gave them dominion over all he had made : “ On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation , so he rested from all his work . And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy , because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation ” ( Genesis 2:2-3 ).
On a scale of 1 to 10 ( with 10 being insanely busy ), how overscheduled is your family ?
In grade school I used notebook paper that had a thin red vertical line down the page . It was the line where you started writing your spelling words or paragraphs for writing assignments . To the left of that line was the margin . This was the white space where the teacher could make comments or you could make edits to your writing .
In his excellent book on simple living titled Margin : Restoring Emotional , Physical , Financial , and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives , Richard Swenson defines margin and the lack of it :
Marginless is being thirty minutes late to the doctor ’ s office because you were twenty minutes late getting out of the bank because you were ten minutes late dropping the kids off at school because the car ran out of gas two blocks from the gas station — and you forgot your wallet .
Margin , on the other hand , is having breath left at the top of the staircase , money left at the end of the month , and sanity left at the end of adolescence .
Rest becomes elusive when we fill our lives so full of activity that we take things right to the edge of the page . An overscheduled life leaves no room for emergencies , errors , or problems . How many of us enjoy lives without sudden difficulties ? They are facts