My mom recently invested in chickens. It sounds like no big deal, until you realize just how much work goes into their startup and upkeep. From planning and building the enclosure (in the middle of an Arizona summer) to researching the best kind of feed for the budget to the physical labor of cleaning the nest boxes every few days, it’s a pretty involved hobby. Not to mention that they wake up with the sun and make it known to the world (loudly).
But in spite of all that (and the fact that she teaches middle schoolers all day) my mom decided to go for it. Sure, she wanted the eggs, but really it was for the learning. And thanks to her investment, my toddler gets to experience responsibility, caring for animals, fine motor skills, and the joy of discovering little brown eggs in the nest boxes. It’s the kind of stuff I would have loved as a homeschooler.
That’s what I love about homeschooling: learning is integrated, not separated into one-hour chunks per subject for six hours a day, rinse and repeat.
Like in school, it can be easy to compartmentalize everything in our lives. But sometimes we need a more holistic approach to keep both our sanity and our focus on the right things.
According to Dictionary.com, holistic means “the idea that the whole is more than merely the sum of its parts.” It’s a word that has gained traction in recent years and has been applied to more than just medicine. At the risk of sounding trendy, I need to take a holistic approach to my housekeeping.
I’ve already shared that I’m not good with details, at least when it comes to my home. Although I love lists and organizational tools, I tend to use them more to remind myself of all the things I’m avoiding doing than to actually do the things. Of course, once I make that phone call I’ve been avoiding for days, I realize I could have just done it in five minutes and moved on instead of having it over my head all that time. Oh well. It’s a growth area.
But it’s this truth about myself that has led me to consider how I can play to my strengths instead of dwelling on my weaknesses. In all things, I can be goal driven instead of task-oriented. When I worry about finishing my to-do list, it gets overwhelming and I tend to miss the point of it all.
And what is the point of it all? To make my home a welcoming place for others, I suppose. And if I’m so worried about how much dust I was able to get off my bookshelves or how many times I’ve swept in the past week, I’m not leaving much space for meeting the immediate needs of those around me–whether that’s a bedtime story or an hour of conversation with a friend. Don’t get me wrong, I still strive to maintain a comfortable living space. But I don’t want that to be my sole focus.
Because at the end of the day, my house could be immaculate but as relationally sterile as an operating room. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
I think Jesus understood this as well. When he healed people, he didn’t just fix them and send them on their way. The bleeding woman, paralytics, blind men, lepers–all those outcasts whom society shunned. Jesus looked at them, saw their problems, and met the true need. He called them daughter, forgave their sins, restored what was broken, touched them. He did more than just provide a miraculous medical cure. He also healed the parts of them that were untouchable by human hands.
The body is more than the sum of its parts. We are more than the sum of our parts. We were created for more than worry, more than stress, more than grief.
We were created for relationship with a loving Savior who rescued us from the darkness of ourselves. Our souls need more than a bandage. They need a cure.
And that cure is waiting for us to approach, open handed, with all the parts of us bared that we would rather keep hidden. He takes them anyway, broken and bruised, and makes them more than their sum.
For He is the Creator. And He is good.