A Couple Hours of "Margin"

If you have not yet read Richard Swenson's book Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives, please make some time to read it this summer. It could be the most important book you read this year.


Tim and I are hard workers, who often blur the lines between work and home. Ministry can tend to cross boundaries, and take over your life in places it shouldn't. There is an art to knowing which situations, people, and issues can be tended, or in fact should be tended, when we are trying to play checkers with our kids, or are out on a date, or even trying to finally go to bed at midnight. We do know how to say "no". We say no without guilt. And yet sometimes, the answer must be "yes." Since Tim can often be found legitimately working at the church building, or ministering during what should be considered our "down time", we snatch time for relaxation at what would be considered odd hours. Say, from 4 o'clock to 6 o'clock in the evening.


We terribly tempted fate yesterday. A big storm was brewing in our area, but we wanted to get out in the "Spam Can" - my name for the tiny Geo Tracker convertible we keep on hand for our jaunts to the mountains. After a long morning-into-afternoon spent tending to all the "must do's", Tim came home and peeled the vinyl top off of our little red car. We knew if the impending storm cut loose a moment too soon, we would be drenched. Somehow, that made it even more fun.


It was just two or three hours, not a minute more. But it was one of those brief interludes where time takes on an elastic quality - it had the effect of a whole day. Come with us, and see what "margin" can do for you!




The Spam Can!


Waiting for our Diet Cokes...


Crazy Convertible Hair...


Soup, Salad, Chips n' Salsa


Now Where To?


Ah yes, the lake...


See the storm coming? Time to head home!