"Nowhere is keeping it simple more essential than in raising our children. One-day-at-a-time parents recognize how much needless worry and trouble they create for themselves and their kids when they lose sight of what is important." -- Alex Parker
Keeping it simple means remembering what is important. Simplicity eliminates the unnecessary and retains the essential. Worry and stress are unnecessary - love and forgiveness are essential. Life is simply grand when we focus on the essentials.
"One of the most notable characteristics of worrying is that it fragments our lives… [it] causes us to be 'all over the place,' but seldom at home… We know where we belong, but we keep being pulled away in many directions, as if we were still homeless. 'All these other things' keep us so far from home that we eventually forget our true address, that is, the place where we can be addressed." - Henry Nouwen
Nouwen eloquently points to the dangers of worry to pull us off center. Then he sneaks up on us by reminding us that our serenity can only be experienced when we are open to be addressed by the creator. When we remember that the creator is also the one who surrounds our lives with truth, beauty and love, our worries disappear.
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