I delight in filling my life.

My life has come to be represented as of late by a big empty house. I don't have an empty life...nor do I have an empty house...if only the books could be transformed into couches and chairs...we'd be in great business.

I've been thinking a lot as of late about filling this space in my life (i.e., my house) and I've been thinking about the structure of the house its self and all it represents. It reminded me of this quote by C.S. Lewis from Mere Christianity,

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

Doesn't that seem like the way life goes? We start building something and God thinks it needs some re-vamping, some remodeling, and so it goes.

And so it is with us. Since General Conference, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of, "start where you are and do one thing better today." The last year has been completely unanticipated. I have, to one degree or another, let things fill my life, rather than intentionally filling it myself. Presently, I can hear the tapping of the Lord's hammer reminding me, that this wall isn't as secure as I think it is, and that pipe is in the wrong place.

The Lord is reminding me, I need to improve how I'm filling my life. This reminds me of some advice I was once given. Thank goodness for Facebook and the connections it allows you to keep for so many years. After my mission, I corresponded with a woman who I met in the first branch I served in. Her name was Anne. While serving in Anne's branch, I had the blessing of seeing her life change. Albeit at a distance, I saw her meet a sweet man who showed up at our branch for conference, and her life was never the same, eventually marrying the man and moving away. As we reconnected post mission, she gave me the following advice as I wandered through the challenging "I'm home from my mission, now what stage" she said,

"As for returning home from your mission, well it can be a difficult transition. Your life as a missionary is so focused and spiritual and structured. The challenge is keeping the spirituality and focus while dealing with other necessities of life. Small things count, daily scripture study and sincere and I stress sincere, prayer. Most of all, keep busy and involved with the church. It took me a long time to learn that I needed to fill my life with spiritual things and eliminate all the junk there is out there. Get an MP3 and listen to conference while walking, jobbing or traveling to school or work. Listen to spiritual music and keep the Sabbath Day holy. I hope that helps. I know I had a hard time after my mission and made some mistakes. But what kept me going is that I never, ever, missed Church. It reminded me week after week of who I was and what was right."

Anne's advice hit my heart and changed me. Her advice has come back to me in the past month or so and has changed me again. You see, since moving into the calm blue house (I'm still coming up with a nickname for the house) things have gotten quiet so I've turned up the noise. This is generally out of my character but I've turned on the TV, the news, the radio. I've turned on all sorts of playlists and movies to fill space. But, its weak space I'm creating with the noise. I need better noise, more filling noise, the right kind of noise.

So, last week, an exciting thing happened at my house...I got the internet! I thought this would be a necessity I could live without, in fact, I determined (at least I told myself) I didn't use it for that many things anyway.

I was wrong. I realized that I used the internet for a lot of things...both good fillers of my time and space and bad fillers. What would I choose when the internet again filled my home. It was a choice I had to make.

All this to say, that since having the internet, I have listened to A LOT of general conference and music off the mormon channel app. Sure, I might have caught up on my favorite show NCIS, but I have made an intentional choice to fill my life with better things. I've filled my house with happy hymns of heaven. I've started singing in my house and I think it adds to calm blue's aims. Creating a happy life, a haven home and a peaceful heart is something that begins with us, is remodeled by God and acts as vehicular protection of sorts for us to return home to him.

Challenge: Substitute one "filler" in your life for a better filler.