When I’m tired or discouraged, or even when I’m feeling successful and maybe a little too full of myself, taking time to pay purposeful attention to God’s hand and guidance grounds me. I love to examine the work he has done in my life.
Actively looking for God’s design of my days and my years gives me a peace that passes my finite understanding during moments of frustration or bewilderment over current circumstances. So many of my struggles are rooted in my tendency toward self-sufficiency and a desperate need to control my circumstances. But in the times when God rips these delusions from my tight-fisted grip, amazing things happen.
My career looks nothing like I dreamed or anything I planned, but it’s so much more beautiful than what I would have designed.
I wanted to be a writer and assumed I’d write things about which I was confident. God had a different idea. He set me clearly (and begrudgingly) on the path of writing about the one thing I would have sworn I never could: organizing. Or more specifically: organizing as my personal ongoing struggle.
Though I resisted this direction for years, when I finally embraced God’s design for my life, my family, my home, and my career, I was able to take a step back and see the beauty of his plan. God’s design allows me to relax and be open and honest, and these are the core components of the personality he gave me. By accepting and eventually appreciating God’s design, I have found my home in Christ and my place in the world.
I was so ready for Tracy’s words in A Redesigned Life. Tracy’s eye for design and her passion for beauty allow her to eloquently explain concepts in a way that I can apply to my life. Her formal training as an interior designer makes her the ideal teacher.
But most of all, Tracy has a passion to help those whom God has placed in her path. I’d known Tracy online for a few years before meeting her in person at a conference in 2017. I’m not even quite sure how it happened, but within minutes of recognizing one another, we were in prayer—the kind of prayer you long to experience with a heart friend. We prayed for this book, for the words you’re about to read.
I’ve learned so much from Tracy. She explains principles of design as created by God (the original designer) and uses them to guide my understanding of how God works within my life. Movement, emphasis, pattern, contrast (and more) are not concepts I naturally understand, but as I learn them from Tracy, I also learn how to identify God’s love, purpose, and design in the world and in me.
Be ready to understand yourself and your life more as you read A Redesigned Life. Whether you realize you’re living in a “hallway season” or learn to embrace the beauty of space within your home and your heart, you’ll be changed.
Dana K. White, ASlobComesClean.com (Reality-Based Cleaning and Organizing), author of Decluttering at the Speed of Life and How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind