Life with Legos

My family is all about legos lately.  Our kids are constantly building lego creations and their bedroom floors are covered with legos.  And then we have Luke, who for years has talked about legos and how so many parts of our lives can be related to legos......And I can't forget Bandit, the cat, who is playing with legos a lot these days.  He finds them in the kids rooms and brings them out to play with on the tile floors where they move fast!

Legos have been on my mind this week as I have tried to make sense of where I am at.  Currently, I am thinking of my life in two specific areas, my relationships and my time. Each of these parts of my life are represented by a lego with multiple pegs available for a connection. I spent the last 10 years of my life with very full legos.  My time lego was full of time spent with family, time in ministry, time at work, and time spent on hobbies.  My relationship lego was full with relationships with my family, my friends, my co-workers, the families and kids I worked with, and so many more people!  Life was full, at times overwhelming, but meaningful and purposeful.

Today, the harsh reality is that my legos are far from full.  I have a lot of time and a lot of empty space ready for relationships.  With all this spare time, I have been doing a lot of thinking on how I am going to fill these legos!  It is actually a very difficult place to be, but I know God has a purpose with every phase of our lives.

First, my relationship lego.  Filling my relationship lego is proving harder than I thought.  I know relationships take time, but I think I forgot exactly how long it can take for someone to really "connect" and commit to a friendship.  There have been a few people here in Tucson who have opened up and are giving our family and myself space on their lego and for them I am extremely grateful.  For the rest of the empty pegs, I will wait on God to guide me to more people who are ready for relationships and friendship.

With my time lego, I am really seeking God for direction.  At just the right time, I started reading a great book "DeClutter Now" by Lindon & Sherry Gareis.  My life has already been decluttered by my circumstances and the life change with our move to Tucson.  Now it is up to me to be intentional about what activities or ministry I choose to fill my time with and which relationships I pursue and develop.  I am daily seeking wisdom on what I should be doing with my time.

I have a question for anyone that is reading, a question I will be asking myself for years to come.  Do you have space on your legos?  Are you overwhelmed with a time lego that is completely filled or maybe overfilled where you can't add anything else?  Is your relationship lego full?  Or do you have space to give someone time and friendship?  This is something that I am really contemplating during this season of life.  We need to keep open space in our schedule and our relational capacity to reach out to those who need us.  We never know when God is going to send us that new opportunity or relationship.

I ask these questions because in the last few weeks I have reached out to a few people, some neighbors and some others in ministry, who have not had time or the ability to respond and actually begin a relationship.  I am hoping with patience on my part, they will respond to my reaching out, but I understand if they don't.  I think it is so easy for each of us to become completely wrapped up in our busy schedules and current relationships that we don't make room in our lives for new opportunities or new relationships.

"If we leave some empty space, both physically and in our hearts and heads, we allow God room to work within our lives and grow us." - From DeClutter Now





I have a lot more thoughts on legos.  One thing I know is that my kids have a much easier time building something amazing, like this beautiful house, when they follow the written and picture directions.  In life, we have detailed instructions from God's word and we can follow the examples of others that have gone before us.  I am constantly looking for people in my life who have learned to build their lives in a positive, healthy and balanced way in regards to the way they spend their time and the relationships they pursue, so I can follow their lead.

Also it takes practice.  My son builds cars and houses repeatedly, always trying new designs with different pieces.  He spent a long time working on building a picture frame and was finally successful!  Same will work for us as we build our life time and relationship legos, we don't always get the results we want on the first try.  There will be times where we need to evaluate our time and relationships and do some decluttering or rearranging, to make room for the right pieces so we can become all that God created us to be and accomplish all the work he has in store for us!









Tonight, I spent some time building legos with Brock.  It was very educational as he showed me how he can make a fully furnished house for his Lego men.  He was putting pieces together in ways I didn't even know they could be used!



So, if you have never thought about your life and legos, I hope you do now.  It really is a great analogy.  On that note, I will give Luke the credit for giving me this lego analogy long ago.  He has used this many times and I'm sure will use it again.  Maybe he will have a blog someday that better explains life & legos, time & relationships.