The Value of 'No'

Well, the time is almost here!!!

We leave for Zambia NEXT SATURDAY!!! Can you believe it? I'm not sure I can!
I finally sat down to update you guys on what is going on. You can check out the prayer requests here and a little information about our trip here.

Can you believe it's July? (the end of July at that!) I just don't know where time has gone... and spending the first two weeks of August in Zambia, celebrating my birthday, and then celebrating one of my dear friend's weddings... Before I know it, August will be gone and it will be fall!

I don't mind necessarily that time is moving so fast, but I have to admit: I'm over-committed. I'm a 'yes' person. Sometimes even when I'm really thinking 'no thank you.' Earlier this year I was part of a ladies Bible study/book study. A recurring theme we discussed was the topic of self-care. Not self-care in a selfish way, but really how we should think of it. As we go through life with coworkers and children and really anyone other than ourselves who does not understand exactly what we mean at every second of the day...we can get a little run down, and dare I say, grouchy. Crabby, frustrated, angry, hangry... *insert your favorite Snickers commercial here* You get the idea. We need to practice self-care because when we get enough sleep and eat actual food that we didn't get in a drive through or from a box, we can react to the world with more grace. At the end of the day when you're emotionally spent, if a cup of tea and a piece of dark chocolate fills you up, then drink some tea and have some chocolate. How we care for ourselves and fill ourselves up impacts how we pour ourselves out to others, and that is important. We talked about the same theme in May during International Office Celebrations in South Africa. We talked about how the way we fall on each other is important. I can't fall on (make an impression on) everyone well every single time, but if I can fall consistently well on one person, and they fall consistently well on one person, and so on, before you know it people have been impacted!

I'm supposed to be on my way to a concert right now. I knew it was risky going to a concert on the last weekend before I leave for Zambia. Like I said, I'm a 'yes' person. And I'm a little dense sometimes, ya know? I like to trudge forward at all costs. Maybe it's all those civil war battlefield visits from my childhood... You know the guy who didn't successfully trudge through the battle got left on the battlefield, but I digress. I have a long list of things I would really like to get done in the next week, plus I still have to go to work like a grown-up. So I went to sleep at a semi-reasonable time last night, and woke up with optimism about all I could get done before the concert. But my body had other plans. I ended up with a terrible, throbbing headache. Because I have mixed degrees of relief when I do get headaches, I opted to stay home from the concert. Who wants to be that person who isn't feeling well, and therefore miserable, at a concert? I didn't want to ruin anyone else's fun. And I didn't want to be stuck at an outdoor concert with 2,000+ people and 8 artists/bands if the headache did persist. So I stayed home to do more quiet activities, including blogging (a very quiet, low-impact activity, eh?)

So I need to learn to be less of a Martha and more of a Mary sometimes. And breath, and take time to enjoy the quiet instead of rushing through life all of the time. I need to learn to value of saying 'no' - not all the time, but at the right times. Sounds like the perfect time to go back to Zambia! Life is so much harder and more challenging in Africa, and yet it is so much simpler. They wrestle with what is in front of them and don't worry about the rest. A lesson I could take to heart.