“The way we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives.” Annie Dillard
I have a love-hate relationship with this quote. Mostly, I love it. It’s true: How I spend these days of small moments build into my family’s culture and life. The choices we make with our careers and our spending habits are shaping what we’ll be able to do with our girls in the future.
But sometimes, I think,Ā Really?! I’m spending my days picking up crayons and answering the same question again and again. THIS is how I’m going to spend my life?!?!
I know that when the girls are grown and we’re empty nesters, I’ll still be doing the mundane of laundry and dishes and all those small things. But I don’t want to think about that. I want to think about big things in the future. My 5-year goals don’t include having a tidy house.
There are so many books about embracing the rhythms of our everyday. I just finishedĀ Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren and have startedĀ Hello MorningsĀ by Kat Lee. Both are about embracing those small holy moments in our days. I need to read these books, to be reminded of the importance of breathing and infusing holy into those quotidian moments.
But I also need to remember not to surrender my dreams to those small moments. That I can get easily mired down in the mundane. How do I keep the big hopes and visions in mind without resenting the small?
God is indeed a God of the everyday. But God is also a God of big, wonderful dreams. Without those, where would humanity be?
Today is my cleaning day. As I tidy and vacuum and run errands, I’ll listen to messages and podcasts about changing the world. I’ll infuse activism into these small moments, remembering a bigger story in the mist of the small work.
How do you keep the big picture in mind without resenting the daily routines? What are ways you infuse hope into the everyday?
Linked with Five Minute Friday, a time to write without editing. Today’s prompt is “surrender.”
Books referenced in this post:
Disclosure: Amazon Affiliate links included in this post.Ā If you click through to Amazon,Ā any purchase you make supports this site.
Annie Rim 
I think about these same things regularly. Ah, motherhood. I’m glad to be your neighbor at Five Minute Friday. Happy weekending to you!
It’s such a balance, isn’t it? Thanks for stopping by!
I prefer this quote from Antoine de St-Exupery; it applies to our moments and our lives:
“We are individual stones in a mighty edifice, whose completed design we shall need more time and more peace to see in its proper perspective.”
Oh, I love that quote! Thanks, Andrew!
These days, for me, it’s the routine things where I find rest.
Right? Routines are so necessary…
Aww, Annie. It is such a conundrum sometimes, isn’t it? Those questions? One day they’ll stop coming. They’ll be replaced by other things, but they will end. You’re wise to seek the holiness of the small moments while still testing out what the balance is of chasing those God-given dreams. For me, with writing, I try to remember that real-life trumps writing life. It doesn’t snuff out writing life, but real life is what I’m living, and writing life is what fuels me. If that makes sense.
Great post, my friend.
Yes! Remembering that the dreams aren’t a substitute for reality. But they also offer such hope in the midst of the mundane. š
Life is definitely a balancing act. I have an hour commute each way to work so I spend a lot of time in prayer and reflection. I have kept gratitude journals which have helped me to remember the blessings in everyday life while also keeping my eyes opened to the bigger dreams in my heart. I am also reading “Draw the Circle” by Mark Batterson for the fourth time…it really helps me to remember that God cares about the big and small details of our lives and that He is orchestrating everything to fit together.
I’ll have to check out Draw the Circle… Thanks for the recommendation! I agree – finding those moments to breathe and pray, whether commuting or vacuuming are key, aren’t they? Thanks for stopping by!