The Start of Stewardship Sundays

If you grow up in the Lutheran Church, like I did, the word “stewardship” is a dirty word to some. They read it at “$teward$hip”, or “let’s talk about why you should joyfully give a lot of money to church and charity.” Now, I do think that cheerfully giving away a set percentage of your yearly income is a very good thing. To church, to charity, however you feel you can joyfully give, it does a lot of good for a lot of people. Including you, the giver. But that’s a blog post for another day.

I like to think of “stewardship” in a broader sense. To me, it asks the question:  “How did you take care of everything you were given this week?” This includes time, opportunities, relationships, my talents, and yes, my money. How did I spend time with my family? How did I use my time to help others instead of frittering it away? Did I spend our money wisely?

I was inspired by Frugal Girl’s Food Waste Friday concept, where every Friday, she uses her blog to hold herself accountable for wasting food. She takes a picture of the rotted stuff she finds in her fridge and uses the public eye to shame herself into being a better steward of her food budget. Now Frugal Girl is way more advanced in the frugality department, and doesn’t live in a big East Coast city with increased cost of living. I’ll never live up to her standards of stewardship. And besides, I have my Ikea addiction. But I can try to reflect more on how I use my resources on a weekly basis. I’m thankful that we don’t live paycheck-to-paycheck, but I sometimes feel like I live alarmclock-to-alarmclock. I don’t feel like I’m in control of time, I feel like it controls me.

So I’m going to start using my Sabbath day, Sunday, to reflect back on my stewardship of the previous week as I plan and look forward to the upcoming week. So perhaps you’ll see some rotten food. And hear the failures and triumphs of trying to use time wisely. 

Anyone want to join me?

My food waste this week:

2 onions

half a red pepper

½ a carton of chicken stock

2 inches of ginger root

a few mini carrots

some romaine lettuce

The carrots were slimy, and the rest is self-explanatory.

I think these are also self-explanatory