Seven

7 weeks before Easter, my friends and I decided to do something different for Lent. Instead of our typical Lenten practice, we made plans to go thru Jen Hatmaker's book Seven, pairing it down to 7 weeks instead of 7 months. Her book is an experimental mutiny against excess. Even though I am in full agreement that we in the US are greedy, materialistic and overindulgent, I was in no way agreeing to 7 months of the experiment so 7 weeks sounded much more doable and what a great lesson for the WHOLE family. As Jen says, "While my life is marked by ambition, accumulation and perceived success, then no matter how much I squawk about Jesus, I'm a resounding gong, a clanging symbol, I am nothing."

Our first week was 7 foods and honestly I wanted to quit the first day. We chose chicken, potatoes, tomatoes, cheese, mixed greens, whole wheat bread, and apples. Dinner was fairly easy but man I missed my chai lattes and condiments. The kids were amazing...I let them cheat the day of Valentines' Day parties at school but for the rest, they followed the rules. Matalley said it was boring and Lola said she missed candy. Our second week was 7 articles of clothing and Matalley only used 5 the whole week (my fashionista survived on 2 outfits and a dress for church). I enjoyed the limited laundry and honestly once you put the outfit on, you didn't think about it the rest of the day. It set us up well for the third week of possessions. We had to eliminate 7 possessions a day. SO 42 items a day left my house, never to return!!  We donated items to the Children's Home, Friends, kids in need and Faith City Mission. Only 2 days could be clothing items and since we had just had a garage sale in October, some of the things we gave up were difficult to say goodbye to. But it was very freeing. I eliminated 111 items from my kitchen! I was so excited about my clothing experience that I had friends come over and purge half my closet (Now that we are on week 7, I still can't believe that I haven't missed one thing that they eliminated).

The 4th week was media week and it was another hard one. Matt worked late a lot that week and the quiet after the kids went to bed before he got home was lonely. I read a lot of books that week. The kids slept better and played very well together. Poor Lola had a tough time during the hours I was working. She tried to play hid and seek with Millie. Millie would look for Lola by yelling "lola where" repeatedly and then get distracted, forgetting Lola was missing. Lola was apt never to be found and then Millie just did not understand the concept of hiding. Grayson surprised me the most and his ability to shut it all off when he is so encapsulated with it normally. The 5th week was spending and since I spend money in at least 7 places a day, pairing it down to 7 places for the week was impossible without fudging (I paid for kids' piano/drum/ballet/soccer/school/lunch all the week before). It did mean we couldn't stop off and grab a drink from sonic or mindlessly shop in TJ Maxx which wasn't much fun and a good reminder of how easy it is to spend when you can just because you can.

This is the week that I actually got to meet Jen Hatmaker at a local event and she thought I was funny...or at least she laughed at me. I know I was totally star struck but when she didn't have to ask me my name for the second book of mine that she was signing, I said "SHE KNOWS MY NAME!!!" and that's when Jen laughed at me. We had shirts made up off of one of her facebook posts, "Our lives are too fun to be skinny." Jen also said that her toughest month was spending (how silly that I couldn't even make it a week) so we have that in common and that makes me giddy. The best part, beyond meeting her, talking to her, laughing at her jokes for the hour of her talk, was that the next day, she facebook posted about meeting us and our fun shirts. I MADE HER POST PEOPLE!!!...I seriously could faint.

Waste week was hard since we don't have a recycle program in Amarillo but we turn lights off when not in use, reuse paper, recycle cans, limit plastic use, make whole new meals out of leftovers and have a compost bin. And this week is stress week...praying 7 times a day during 7 sacred pauses. I failed miserably today...not at the praying but definitely at the pauses. It is a good practice that I will have another chance at tomorrow.

I love that Easter is almost here and I just am beside myself at all the Christ went through for me. This culture that we live in is so extravagant. It should be easy to give it all up knowing what he suffered through. The funny thing about this study, was the number of people who said, "I could do 7 foods easy" or, "I would love to have a week without media." I honestly was thinking "Yeah right, it's a lot harder than you think" but what makes me laugh is that if society thinks it's so easy to give up all this excess, why don't we do it? Why do we assimilate to this culture?

I hope my kids remember the Easter we did "7". I might just make us do it every year so we can focus on what really matters instead of all these idols. Thank you God for the lesson. Thank you God for hope.