In this issue:

Is your schedule crammed? Your space full of too much stuff? Your soul overwhelmed with too much of everything? Author Courtney Ellis makes a guest appearance to talk about a simpler life based on the idea that less is more. Courtney is funny and witty and so honest about her own struggles in a way that encourages us to believe we can find the same freedom she has.

Podcast

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Inspired Life: It's Too Much In this episode, I interviewed Courtney Ellis, author of Uncluttered: Free Your Space, Free Your Schedule, Free Your Soul. Courtney is a co-pastor of a church with her husband, a writer, and mom of three young children. She says that as co-ministry partners, she and her husband have a deal that whoever was home with the kids that day had the harder day. "No one pooped on the floor at your meeting," she says when describing how they arrived at this arrangement. Where did the concept for Uncluttered come from? Courtney described how she arrived at a point where she needed to make a change. She says we come to change from having a point of pain. Her point of pain was feeling overwhelmed in every area of her life. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. For Courtney, it was too much stuff, too much technology, too many yeses, too many activities. She said she told her small group that it was too much. Seeking clarification, a friend in the group asked her, "What is too much?" "Everything. It's all too much," she said. Have you been there too? One of the hardest things for her was learning to say no. She tells a story in this episode about when it was their family's turn to take the preschool bird home. The only slot was the week of her due date. Because, why not be responsible for a bird when you're going to give birth? When she told her husband, Daryl, about the arrangement he said, "You didn't make the preschool get a bird. Why do we have to take it home?" Isn't that true sometimes? We have "obligations" because of someone else's choices. Be sure to listen to the podcast to hear Courtney's bird story and also about how she has simplified her wardrobe by eliminating color from her closet (really!) and how she eased off on technology.      

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