Month: July 2017

When You’re Ready to Throw In the Towel

July 25, 2017 / Jean / 1 Comment

Note: I’m still doling out posts from the archives while I enjoy my summer break. This post originally appeared March 24, 2016. As I write this note and prepare to load this post into the publishing queue, it’s the Monday following my latest book launch and this message is one I really needed today. I’m sure there’s someone else out there who could use this reminder. If that’s you, hang in there, friend.

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“If this is my calling, why is it so hard?”

“If this is really what God wants me to do, why is there so much opposition?”

“Is this dream really from God? Is He trying to tell me I should just give up and stop wanting it?”

I’ve been in a place of asking these questions. Sometimes, I’m still there. But when I do, I’m reminded of the following:

We’re called to trust, to persevere, and to be patient. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to trust and submit, and then He’ll make our paths straight–not the other way around.

Trust isn’t really trust if the way is clear and easy.

Perseverance isn’t really perseverance if there’s no opposition.

Patience isn’t patience if the outcomes happen when and how I want them to.

Quick and easy is wonderful in the moment but then it’s over and it does nothing to strengthen our faith, sanctify us or grow us in our daily walk. And when the results come easily, we don’t appreciate them nearly as much as when we work hard and fight for them.

If you’re facing hard, if it seems like everything in the universe is trying to keep you from even trying, let alone achieving that thing you know deep in your bones you were put here to do — consider that you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to, and the enemy is pulling out all the stops in an attempt to get you to give up, because he’s terrified of what will happen if you don’t.

So don’t.

Don’t give up.

Persevere. Keep going. One day at a time. One little hard-fought step at a time.

Be patient. Be flexible. Surrender the outcomes to God.

Trust with your WHOLE heart. Trust in His goodness and His complete love for you.

And in due time He will clear the way for you to be ALL He means for you to be. He promised.

You’re not fighting this fight alone. He’s with you every step of the way, ordering your steps. You don’t have to do it all, and you don’t have to do any of it by yourself. Your Maker has a plan for you, and HE will bring it about. ALL that’s required of you is obedience. Show up and be willing. He’ll take it from there.

Remember that God knows how to God. He’s got this.

And so do you.

Love,

PS – Linking up this week with Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart, Missional Women’s Faith Filled Friday, and the Faith Barista.

How to Keep a Clean Enough House

July 18, 2017 / Jean / 0 Comments

Note: Not my actual house.

Note: I’m digging into the archives so I can keep the content coming while I enjoy a summer break. This post was originally posted on June 6th of 2016, and I decided to share it because it’s a good complement to my recent Faithfulness series. For a more recent post from that series that covers more ground on this topic, click here.

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I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that I’ll never be as good a housekeeper as my mom. Seeing as how I’ve made it this far in life without the cleaning gene kicking in, I have a feeling that the day I’m finally good at keeping a clean house will be the day I can pick up the phone and call in a cleaning service.

And do you know what? That’s okay. I don’t need to hold to my mom’s standard of cleanliness, and I can just go ahead and stop making that comparison right now. It helps to keep in mind that she was a full-time homemaker, and cleaning the house was her job–or at least a major part of it. I, on the other hand, am juggling writing multiple books, a blog, and a freelance career. It would be kind of insane to expect my home to look like I spend hours each day cleaning and decorating. I’m guessing the time and energy you have to devote to cleaning is also pretty limited. I finally made peace with these limitations by deciding it’s okay if my house is merely clean enough.

“Clean enough for what,” you ask? Clean enough that we don’t feel like slobs. Clean enough to ward off a feeling of embarrassment if someone drops in unexpectedly. Clean enough that my husband and I can relax and focus on our work (or rest) without being distracted by the nagging feeling that we should be making more time to clean. Clean enough that we can feel like actual grownups and not middle-aged adolescents.

So how do you keep a clean enough house?

First, you figure out what “clean enough” means for you. Obviously, the “enough” in “clean enough” implies that we’re not aiming for perfection, here. What’s the minimum that needs to be done in order to free you to relax in your own home and let go of guilt and embarrassment?

For me, that means keeping the bathroom clean, smoothing out the covers on the bed each day, staying on top of the dirty dishes, keeping the carpet vacuumed on a regular basis, and controlling the dreaded cat smell. It also means keeping an uncluttered and welcoming entryway so I can answer the front door without feeling like I need to apologize (full disclosure: currently my entryway does not meet this standard).

My clean-enough bathroom. Just don’t look too closely at the floor.

My husband and I both have a pretty high tolerance threshold for dust and clutter, so these are not things I worry about on a daily or weekly basis. I dust and sweep the tile floors every so often when I get bit by the deep-cleaning bug, but I don’t sit around worrying about how to fit these chores in. And while we do make an attempt to keep the clutter contained, I think we’ve both made peace with the fact that as introspective creative types, we’re probably always going to live with a certain amount of clutter. Honestly, I don’t think I’d be completely comfortable in a totally clutter-free environment. I’d be too afraid of cluttering it up.

At any rate, the point is that your threshold might be different. Maybe you need to dust every day but making your bed isn’t even on your radar. Only you can decide what makes your home feel clean enough for you. So decide that, and figure out which tasks are required to achieve that minimal level of clean, and how often.

The second, and most challenging, part is, of course, implementation. If making time for cleaning chores came easily, you probably wouldn’t be reading this. So allow me to introduce you to the two-minute rule.

The two-minute rule is something I learned about recently from The Lazy Genius, and it is thus: if there’s a task that takes two-minutes or less, and you have two minutes to spare, go ahead and do it.

You would be amazed at how many housekeeping tasks can be done in two minutes or less. Here are the things I can do in that time:

Smooth the covers over the bed
Wipe down the bathroom sink and mirror
Swish cleaner around the toilet bowl
Scoop out the cat box
Pick up an entire trail of dog toys
De-clutter the entry-way table
Rinse out my dirty dishes
Put away my shoes when I’m done wearing them

That’s almost every chore on my “clean enough” list. The only thing on there that can’t be done in two minutes, vacuuming, only needs to be done once a week (once every two weeks . . . or more if I’m in a busy season) and takes up about thirty minutes of my weekend.

So you can see how this is totally doable, right?

What about you? Do you struggle to let go of a standard of cleanliness that’s driving you crazy? What makes your house feel clean enough? Got any nifty, potentially life-changing cleaning tips to share? Let’s hear about them in the comments!

11 Simple Life Quotes to Inspire Clutter-Free Living

July 11, 2017 / Jean / 0 Comments

Here’s an excerpt of a recent article I wrote for Brightpeak Financial blog.

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You’ve cleaned out your closets, given truckloads of stuff to charity, streamlined your schedule and seen firsthand how living with less can free up time, money and energy that you can use to focus on what truly matters. But no matter how great the rewards of simpler living, it isn’t always easy to maintain a clutter-free lifestyle.

Here are 11 simple life quotes to help you stay focused and motivated when the clutter starts creeping back in.

1. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” —Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

2. “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?… But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” —Matthew 6:25-27,33

3. “The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life.” —Marie Kondo, The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up

4. “The best way to give yourself a raise is to spend less money.” —Joshua Fields Millburn, Everything that Remains

5. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” —Matthew 6:34

Read the rest at Brightpeak Financial!

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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:

Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart

Missional Women’s Faith Filled Fridays

#DreamTogether at God-Sized Dreams

PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!

A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.

Slowing Down and Other Changes

July 4, 2017 / Jean / 0 Comments

First of all, Happy July Fourth! Here in the U.S., that means it’s Independence Day, the day we celebrate becoming one nation under God by grilling hot dogs and blowing things up. If that’s you today, may your hot dogs be tasty and your fireworks awesome (and safe). Hooray for freedom!

In the spirit of exercising my freedom, I’m going to be slowing things down here for the rest of the summer. I know, I know… I just got back into a posting groove after moving forced a long hiatus this spring. But I have another book due in August and I’m ridiculously behind on it, and so for the next couple of months I’m going to need to simplify my life as much as possible and devote as much of my writing energies as possible to getting the book done.

Also, it’s summer, and the truth is that I’d rather be spending my downtime enjoying the outdoors and my family than sitting here blogging at y’all, as much as I love you. *kissyface*

But that doesn’t mean I’m going away for the summer, because I do love y’all and I can’t stay away completely. This isn’t a hiatus–it’s just me giving myself permission to not worry about sticking to a regular posting schedule and to only post when I have something worth saying or sharing. And I’ll be filling in some of the gaps with some golden oldies from the archives.

In the meantime, if you’re hungry for content and you have a taste for the weird and sometimes creepy, you might check out my author blog. I’ll be slowing things down over there, too, but I’ve added a lot of fun content in the run up to last week’s launch of my newest novel, so that might keep you occupied for a while.

And in the spirit of full disclosure, I’m going to be making another minor change going forward–so minor you might not even notice it if I didn’t point it out. I’m going to start adding affiliate links where appropriate. Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn this into an affiliate marketing blog. Just, whenever I want to recommend a book or a tool or something, as I sometimes do, if there happens to be an affiliate program for it, I’m going to go ahead and sign up for it and use the link. Or at the very least I’ll use the Amazon affiliate link.

And there’s one more thing, y’all. I have a goal, and I just thought I’d go ahead and put it out there so the prayer warriors among you can give me some prayer support. My goal is to get to a place professionally where my time is my own to decide how to use–where I’m not dependent on content agencies and subject to their editorial schedules and whims, but I can set my own schedules for both my writing and my clients’, and be able to keep consistent rhythms that allow me the time and energy to focus on my passion projects–like providing encouragement for soul-weary women and practical tips for doing life in a way that honors God.

I’ve been thinking that getting into ghostwriting books might be one path to that goal (I’ve ghostwritten plenty of blog posts and articles, but never anything book-sized). This is something I’ve been researching and praying about, and asking God to show me the steps I need to take in order to move in that direction, without falling into old habits and running ahead of Him and trying to force it to happen under my own power. So if y’all could maybe send up a quick prayer or two for me along those lines, I’d sure appreciate it. And if you know someone who might be in a position to hire a ghostwriter, maybe mention my name?

In the meantime, I’m going to keep my head down as much as possible and focus on doing the work that’s already before me, like writing the book I’m actually contracted write, hallelujah amen.

What about you, sister-friend? Are you slowing down for the summer, or has this summer got you doing the holy hustle? Do you have any goals or dreams that I can be praying for? Share your thoughts in the comments!