Well, I am closing in on the most humbling parts of writing. That is the part where you have put your words down and then trusted someone else to read them. It is the part where your beautiful baby can earn some scars, when all of her flaws come to the surface.

Its not that bad, really. It is part of the process, and from experience already I know that it is a necessary part if I want this sacrifice to be a worthy one. I don't mind it. I know 100% will be better when it comes back to me.

Living Simplicity, my (hopefully) inspiring and encouraging read about learning to live simply is more less a journal of lessons I learned as I processed my own move from complicated to simple. Or, I guess more honestly would be my complicated life, to a more simple one. We have a way to go to live as simply as my heart desires to, but we are on our way.

Two and half years ago our little family of 5 moved from a large home in town to a tiny one in the countryside of Tennessee. It was a big adjustment for us, and I found myself needing to do lots of soul searching as I went. I discovered that my while my closets were full of junk and piles of unneeded stuff, I was also storing lots of pride, insecurity and wasted resources. I can't say I have broke the ties to all those things completely yet, but the desire is growing to do so.

I am noting that I am not the only one desiring such things. As our world is reeling from all kinds of not simple things, many of us are beginning to be willing to really look at our lives and evaluate what is really important. We are also starting to see our lives separately from our stuff, and recognizing that what we do on a day-to-day basis matters in the big picture. Most passionately, I am embracing that living the way that "everyone" lives and the social "normal" of mass chaos 24/7 is not what I want to be about. I do not want my family and I to be so busy and harried that we do not get to enjoy our moments together. Life is too short. I do not want our stuff to be so consuming that we miss out on enjoying the blessing of relationships. People are too precious.

I spoke with a friend this morning, who was recently in a horrible car accident that involved a fatality. Thankfully, her and her children, who were all with her, were hardly touched physically. However, the impact of their close call has given them new vision. They are reevaluating everything. She is questioned all things from what data plan she has on her phone to what commitments she needs to let go of. Oh, that we would all do that before we have a wake up call like she got!

As I hope to share with you soon by way of this book, I am actively pursuing that line of evaluation myself. Commitment to such things can make you do crazy things, trust me. I think those things are worth sharing.

What would you be willing to give up in order to embrace a life that allows for just the most important things?

I wrote this piece as I was processing a death of a sweet friend, Anna Rigdon Norman. She passed away the day after I wrote this on May 20th, 2016. It has taken a couple of months for me to be able to post this, but the lessons have been ongoing since then. I am so thankful for my life-sharers!

I have a friend who is likely leaving this life very soon, if not today. She is surrounded by those who love her after a long battle with cancer. She has raised her three littles these last 6 years with an awareness that her time is very limited, even as she fought for each of those days with the bravery of a queen. 

As I send my thoughts and blessings her way, to her husband and family, I ponder my own blessed life. I consider how life is so real, and how it feels more real when I hear that such real things are taking place. Even as cartoons blaze in the living room, kids argue over stuff, the dishes sit dirty and the cat screams at me, someone is letting go of this real life for an even more real one. She is saying goodbye, and those who have shared her life are seeing her off on her way to heaven. 

It makes me consider my life, of course. My life is not overshadowed with an acute awareness that my time is short, though of course it is. I get to breath in the spring air, and simply live in my moment, without the likelihood of it being my last opportunity to do so. I feel blessed, though I know she is too. She surrounded right now by those who shared in her life, who have seen her suffer and fight. They were the people she embraced her limited days with, they were ones who she wants to remember, who will carry her memory closest. They are her life sharers. 

I have been considering my own life sharers a lot lately. I have been pondering not only this life, but my past years and my past seasons and those who shared it then. I think back on the times when I felt the most full and blessed, and then I can't help but connect those memories with the people I shared them with. I know I loved each of them when I was there, but I don't think I fully understand the impact of their life on mine. 

Maybe it is age, I turned 38 last week, but I am more aware of the intertwining of lives now than I was before. I see how a close friend changes me, how my best friend directs my thoughts, how my husband has altered my tastes and preferences, and my children's lives have affected my own understanding of myself. These life-sharers, they don't just hang out around me, they breath my same air. We go the same church, we are in the same groups, we are share the same circles, we do that same stuff.
We share cars, we share books, we share kids, we share food, we share tears. We embrace joyful things, we cry when there is suffering amongst us, we praise God on behalf of each others answered prayers, we ask God to come through when needed. We aren't just friends, brothers, sisters and wives. We are life sharers.

We share the same life, the same space and time. We are fully intertwined in each other and exchange grace in various forms between us. You aren't just in the room with me a lot, you share my life with me. You help evolve my dreams, you mold my passions.  Your stories, jokes, your posts, your words they change me a little at a time. And I change you.

It increases the importance of those relationships in my own spirit. I want to share life with people. Not everyone, just a few. But, I believe God put a desire there to share life. We weren't meant to be an independent orb on this earth. We are connected in ways we do not understand, I think. 

Who are your life-sharers?  Thank God for them, I know I am doing that for mine today.