I was raised in a home where being thrifty was a virtue. My mother truly believed that God blessed that attitude more than any other. I often admired her for her ability to make every cent go the distance. She helped us save money, and was faithful to a fault about giving her tithes. But when she was young she also had a lovely passion for change about her. When she thought it benefited her greater plan, she resewed buttons, and washed and saved curtains, and patched clothes. But every season that rolled around she completely refreshed the house. She pulled out or purchased curtains and bed linens, fresh towels and cloths for the bath and the kitchen, and new rugs at each door. I remember her ritual as some of the happiest times in my mother's life. It was such a passion for her to make her home as lovely as possible, not just for us, but also so her neighbors would enjoy. Her flower gardens and her Christmas decorations were her greatest pride. And the collections in both grew with the years.
As time went on, money didn't go as far, in spite of her good money sense, and circumstances stole her joy, Mom changed. In the end, she was holding on to things she otherwise would have trashed in her earlier years. She began to be afraid to spend money on new things, and she locked herself into a world of the past. Down through the years, my finances have not allowed that could change up my whole house in spring and in fall. And I have felt somehow cheated that her passion couldn't also have been mine. But I have had to look closely at my reasons for wanting to be like her.
One, is that I truly love home decor. Yet for me, I have to be careful that it doesn't become an obsession for visual appeasement, rather than a passion for newness, and having a clean renewed home. In addition, I have to revisit occasionally my attitudes toward "thrift." Sometimes, I back completely away from the natural state of life's renewing, and find myself frozen in time, thinking, "I don't have money for that." I will fall prey to my own conception of God loving the thrifty, to the point of abandoning his love of provision and newness in all things. I have caught myself before, wondering how you can be both. But the clue is that early in Mom's marriage, she wasn't thrifty as an excuse to hang on to things, she was thrifty as a means of being in a constant state of change, of newness. That is what was Godly about it. Not that she saved something to be used again, as I presumed over the years, but that she used the money she saved to dress things up and make our world a brighter, happier place. I believe God blessed her in this for a lot of years, until she began to care more for the things than the dressing of the house. There is a fine line that when we cross it, we digress into selfishness, and lack of faith. It is a battle that I often wage with myself. And I confess that I have to make a spiritual adjustment on a regular basis.
The Lord has given me a word, which I now use to describe my design work. I want it to brand my work, and my mind. The word is "PRINK." It means dress for show, preen. On the surface, it would seem to be a word of boastfulness. "Dress to show off?" But it is anything but. Prink signifies for me the very process of God to desire newness and redressing, and beauty in our world. We dress our children to be presentable at school. We dress for work to set a tone at work, to make our clients comfortable with whatever we do, so they might trust our sincerety. We dress our windows to regulate the light and heat coming into our homes. We dress our food so that it is appealing to eat. Need I go on? Our lives are in a continual state of dressing and redressing almost everything we do. And for me, I have to find a place where it is not so much about the finished product, or the design as the doing of it. I need it to be a passion and joy, a reason for living, but not an obsession to the details. I need to let the Spirit of God which designs to live through me, and be able to trust him to provide for my life's work. I need to be willing to let go of the old and welcome the new. I need to grow in this area of my life, and move forward with the restraint of thrift where necessary, so that I can bring change that is continually refreshing and Godly into my family's world.
Lord, see my need, and hear my confession. Strengthen my will to let go and find new. And help me not see thrift as a do nothing state, but a careful use of what you provide so that I might fulfill your passion to make all things new in MY life. AMEN
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