Rest Found In A Tea Basket

My ladies’ Bible study that meets on Tuesday nights is just finishing Breathe by Priscilla Shirer. This has been a challenging look at what enslaves us and how to break free from the bondage of that “thing” in order to create breathing room to experience God; find rest or Shabbat in the Lord.

In week 4 Priscilla gives a specific challenge. Taking a full Sabbath Day is taking one out of 7 days – or 14% of our week – to rest with the Lord. Using that number 14 she challenges us to 1. Take 14 minutes a day to rest with the Lord and remember what He has done for us already today and praise Him for what he will do with the remaining part of our day and 2. Clean 14” of space – 14” of desk space, 14” of closet space, 14” of counter or cabinet space. Create Sabbath Margin (#sabbathmargin) 14” at a time.

For the next 7 days I am going to do this challenge of 14 inches. I know I have things that need to be de-cluttered, cleaned out, given away, or simply organized. Today I started with the tea basket on my counter.

Maybe this is silly, but as I was contemplating this challenge I was getting coffee and the tea basket sits right by the coffee maker on my counter. Neither my husband nor I are avid tea drinkers so a first logical question is why I even have a tea basket to begin with. My husband travels and he always brings home the tea packets from the various hotels he stays in. We didn’t really have a place to put all the random packets of tea – thus the tea basket was born. But now, it is stuffed full to the point of overflowing, is a messy eyesore on my counter, and I have to take things out to find a tea I do want to make.

Getting rid of the basket altogether would immediately open up just about 14 inches of counter space. I may do that eventually but that would require finding a place to put the tea I want to keep and the effort of doing that would keep me from organizing at all. Tasks seem to snowball don’t they?

I do often drink herbal tea at night during the winter. It is still winter, so for now, the tea basket can stay and I simply started this 14” Sabbath Margin challenge by organizing it.

Most of the tea packets were some form of fully caffeinated black or green tea – which will never get consumed by anyone in my house. My first step was to separate the herbal tea from everything else. I put the herbal tea back in the basket and then dealt with the others.

Some packets were pretty beat up. You might wonder just how long it had been in the bottom of someone’s purse and if it was still safe to use. I threw those away. I found a specialty packet of Chai Tea spices I didn’t even know I had. I kept that as I do enjoy a Chai Tea periodically. I found a bunch of green tea packets and since green tea is supposed to be good for you I kept those as well. The rest will find a home somewhere with someone who loves to drink tea. I have also asked my husband to use discretion in bringing more into the house!

In just minutes (literally, less than 10) I turned unorganized and chaotic into organized and peaceful. The margin created is really more mental than anything. Chaos, no matter how small, affects my sense of well-being. I will no longer have an immediate sense of “I really should do something about that” first thing in the morning when I get my coffee and see that basket. #sabbathmargin will be a good practice.

Look around – what small 14” of space can you tackle right now? Do it and let me know what it was and how it made you feel. I look forward to hearing from you.

Blessings,

Denise

#LivingHoly