just Lu: Becoming the Housewife MacGyver SPIRITUALLY & EMOTIONALLY

We've come to the final segment of Housewife MacGyver... what a year it has been! Hopefully you have learned as much as I've learned and added a few tricks to your MacGyver bag... if you need to review, pop over here to see all of the Housewife MacGyver posts.

Our final segment here is all about becoming more self-reliant spiritually and emotionally, which is a far cry different from the other segments we've had this year! I saved these topics for last partly because I wasn't sure how to approach them when we started this, and mostly because I feel that they are the most important.

After all, what good is a organized, prepared household if we are deficient spiritually and emotionally? A full pantry and a balanced budget can't compare to a happy house full of love. :)

We have some great guests lined up this month who I can't wait for you to meet -- and you can still be among them if you'd like! Just email me at iamjustlu@gmail.com. I'd love to have you share your thoughts and experiences about being/becoming/trying our very best to be spiritually and emotionally self-reliant.

I hesitate to say self-reliant, however, because when it comes to our spiritual and emotional well-being, it isn't about SELF. It's about relationships. Other people. Not just me-myself-and-I.

So that's really the focus of this month... talking about how we develop, maintain, and improve our relationships with God, our families, and the other important people in our lives.

Originally, these two (spiritual and emotional self-reliance) were planned as two separate topics. But as I thought more about it, they are hard to separate. Maybe it's just me, but I struggle to talk about my relationships with my family members, and the importance of those relationships, without also talking about the influence that my Father in Heaven and my relationship with Him has on every other relationship in my life. I'll share more about my own feelings later (starting later today), but for now, just a word or two more about this topic...

First and most important: respect. We will most definitely be talking about religious beliefs, but I expect each of my invited guests and each of you as readers to be respectful of differences in beliefs and practices.

I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS church, often called the Mormon church). Most of you are probably not. But our differences should be a source of strength to us, not a source of contention or frustration. The next 6-ish weeks will hopefully be full of discussion of how to improve our families and relationships, regardless of which building we worship in. We can always learn from others even if we don't always agree with them. :)

So, let's get this party started! Tell me... how would you describe spiritual and/or emotional self-reliance? What does it look like to you in everyday life?