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Last Thursday my washer overflowed and filled my utility room with a couple inches of water. We've had way too much of that kind of nonsense over the last couple of years—in fact a foundation leak required us to completely gut and re-build the first floor of our house over the course of about a year. 😳😬🌊🧰
Re-build.
That word jumped out at me because even as I was sweeping water out the door
(Thank God there was an openable door to the outside where that water could be swept!)
Anyhoo—even as I was sweeping water out the door and praying it wouldn't seep into the recently re-built adjacent kitchen I was already thinking about how maybe our utility room could be made better.
Re-built, if you will.
It's never worked quite right. The dryer venting is designed so poorly and things take forever to get dry. I've had years of buyer's remorse over my smelly, mildewy fancy front-loading washer
(and believe me, I've tried EVERYTHING to address that.)
My husband and I complain at least once a week about how bad this very situation is.
So there I was, sweeping water and throwing down towels and IN MY HEAD buying an old-fashioned top-loader with basic knobs AND re-designing that entire room.
I think this speaks to our desire to grow and to improve—but unfortunately it also sheds light on something else we have a tendency to do.
We've lived in our house for a very long time.
Decades.
The dryer situation has been just as bad all along. And we've had this same smelly washer for how long? Not decades, but at least six or seven years.
So why did it take a crisis for me to look at, name, face, and address something that's been a problem for so long?
Thursday I was sweeping water, and Friday I was buying a new washing machine (hallelujah!)
and talking to a contractor about shuffling that dryer toward an outside-facing wall.
And here's the crazy part. I am all about growth. All about living big. I completely believe God has created us in His image and designed us to do exactly what He told Adam and Eve to do when He created them:
Prosper!
Reproduce!
Fill Earth!
Take charge!
- Gen. 1:28 MSG
I live my life with this in mind. I coach women and teach about these ideals all the time, and yet–
It's so easy to be stuck, small or slowed. My laundry situation has had us in that exact situation for years but I brushed it off as not worth my time and attention.
I don't consider that to be the biggest deal but I see this happen all around me all the time.
A frustrating laundry room is one thing. But letting chronic, addressable issues be the narrative for your life is something different entirely.
I see it all the time. We can get kinda tired, and knocked back a bit, or feel pressure from…all kinds of places and we come to realize that, yes, we're living…
but it feels like the volume is being turned down and growing fainter.
Have you ever felt that way?
That exact issue is where my focus has been the last few years.
How do we fulfill the promise of Psalm 92—to be fresh and flourishing and continuously bearing fruit?
I've been studying this…a LOT.
How can we move forward and truly create transformation in our lives? And WHY do we have such a tendency to…just not?
And maybe that's the question worth asking:
What have you gotten so used to living with that you've stopped noticing it isn't really working?
Because sometimes we're not dramatically stuck.
We're just living with something that's been chronically off for so long that it's started to feel normal.
And we don't have to wait for the washing machine to overflow before we pay attention. 🙋🏻♀️🌊
If you're wondering where that might be happening in your own life, I made something to help.
Take the FREE What's Your "Stuck" Pattern? Quiz and discover which of five common patterns might be keeping you from moving forward.
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