Lisa Barry: I am notorious for creating schedules and grid sheets on my computer in an effort to organize my life. I get so excited, I tell my friends all about my plans. But a few months later, a friend will say, "Now how is your chart coming along?" I have to say, "Oh, no. I don't use that anymore."

Well, today on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot welcomes back for one last time our special guest, Donna Otto, who uses schedules but doesn't give up on them like I do. Find out how you might organize your own life better as we begin this Friday edition of Gateway To Joy.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking with my friend, Donna Otto, today. Donna, what gems of wisdom do you have, you as an older woman, for younger women?

Donna Otto: Well, I have a little poetry I'd like to read. "Every minute to and fro, that's the way my hours go. 'Bring me this and take me that,' feed the dog, take out the cat. Standing up, I eat my toast, drink my coffee, thaw the roast. Empty the garbage, make the bed, rush to church, then wash my head. Sweep the kitchen, wax the floors, scrub the woodwork, clean the doors. Scour the bathtub, then myself. Vacuum carpets, straighten shelves. Eat my sandwich on the run; now my afternoon's begun.

To the baseball game I go; when will there ever be time to sew? Meet the teachers, stop the fight. See the dentist, fly the kite. Help with homework, do the wash. Iron the clothes, put on the squash. Shop for groceries, cash a check; fight the crowds, now I'm a wreck. Dinnertime it soon will be. 'What's for dinner?' they ask. 'Wait and see.'

Dirty dishes crowd the sink. Next there's popcorn, then a drink. Will they ever go to bed? Will I ever get ahead? 'Bring me water,' get the light. Turn off the TV, lock the bike. 'Where's my pillow? Hear my prayers. Did you lock the door downstairs?' At last, in bed, my spouse and I, too tired to move, too weak to cry. But ere I doze, I hear him say, 'What do women do all day?'"

So what do women do all day? You know very well that you have done all of those things in one day without thinking about it. I think that younger women, at least the women that I run into, are really concerned about finding order and being more organized and finding tools and hints. So you are a great teacher of order, order in your world, the simplification that comes from order. I think simplicity is certainly one of the disciplines of our lives. Too much stuff prohibits us from leading a simple life.

As you know, I've written a couple of books on organization and provide an organizer/planner through some of our classes that help women.

Elisabeth Elliot: The titles? Give us the titles.

Donna Otto: The titles: GET MORE DONE IN LESS TIME and the organizer/planner. We just call it an organizer/planner. These books have really been tools to help us get to the place. In the GET MORE DONE book, there are four or five chapters about how to use a planner. Women often say, "Okay, give me the greatest single tool. What can I buy and what can I do?"

Elisabeth Elliot: Can I ask, first of all, before you get into all this practicality, does a neat house and organization and doing things in a methodical, orderly way have anything at all to do with sanctification, with the spiritual life?

Donna Otto: Absolutely. I wish I knew how many times I have been asked, "Do I get my private spiritual world in order before I get my physical world in order? Or do I get my physical world in order and then my spiritual world becomes more orderly?" I think it's sort of the chicken and the egg routine. But I have been told by myriads of women that when their world, if nothing more than the surface part of their world, was orderly, they were more able to sit at the feet of Jesus.

I know for myself, one of the greatest detractors to my spiritual life is distractions. Distractions. And they come in every form. For me, probably because of the way my mind works, I do not have an orderly mind. I have a very confused, cluttered mind. I am quintessentially a flibbety-gibbet, from here to there. It's hard for me to have a conversation. You're smiling at me, because you know that. You know that about me. There are times when you want to grab me and shake me and say to me, "Now order this thought, Donna, so I can understand it."

But the reality is that my mind, it's very hard for me to do that. I'm not naturally gifted in that area. So my world was out of order. I tell audiences I used to hide my dirty dishes in the clothes dryer.

Elisabeth Elliot: You did?

Donna Otto: Absolutely. I'd hide my dirty dishes in the clothes dryer. So the ability then for me to sit down and read God's Word, to sit down and write in my journal, to meditate when I knew, right beyond wherever I was, was a mess, was a terrible distraction.

So one begets the other. I think different personalities and temperaments, you may be able to rest more in the arms of Jesus before the world is in order. I do think that the cerebral, ethereal kind of person, who is able to lay on the sofa and read deep and profound things for hours on end, can often use that as an excuse for not having their world in order. I really believe that the God who created us, in the most orderly universe that He created, created within me not only a need for order, but the requirement of order.

Elisabeth Elliot: The Bible says that everything is to be done decently and in order. So if that's what God tells us to do, then it definitely is a spiritual matter. It's hard to get across the idea to younger Christians that literally everything is a spiritual matter. My husband, Addison Leitch, used to say, "All our problems are theological ones."

Would you like to tell the story of the woman who called you up in tears and said she had six feet high--a stack of laundry--and three days' worth of dishes?

Donna Otto: Every dish in the house. She told me there wasn't a clean dish in the house. She described her house. I said to her, she was crying and very upset, and I said to her, "Now stop and tell me exactly what your situation is." And she did. From room to room, she went. Not a bed had been made. There was clutter on every surface space of the house. She had not vacuumed in two or three months, hadn't remembered the last time she had dusted, because all the surface places were covered with things. The laundry was very high, six feet high. The dishes, not a clean dish in the house. She was beside herself.

Well, you wonder why she was beside herself! How could she possibly think? So she said, "What shall I do?" You know, what I wanted to do was just to run over there and help her. But I said to her, "Get the area that you can see in order as quickly as possible." I suggested that she get some container or bag or box or something, and go from room to room and pick up everything that cluttered the surface. Put the dishes first in the sink to soak, so that while she was doing that picking up, they would be cleaning themselves. Put a load of laundry on and make the beds, and call me when she had finished those things.

Well, if you would have heard that changed voice, I knew that her face changed. Her whole countenance was changed. She took a deep sigh and said, "You know, I'm not sure where to go next, but at least I feel enough energy and enough positive feeling that I can go next. I can do the next thing." She couldn't do the first thing, much less the next thing.

So this business of order, for me, it's a redeeming of the time. I cannot tell you how many times I looked for things I knew I had, but couldn't find. I spent time in repetitive deeds that I should have done the first time, or done the first time correctly. For me, it came to a principle. I really believe that I can give all sorts of hints, and I do-practical tools to get your world in order. You know many of them. Most of the women who are listening to us know them. If I said, "Have you ever made a market plan?" They'd say yes. "Have you ever made a menu plan?" They'd say yes. "What does it take to organize the laundry?" They could tell us.

But what happens with a practical tool, unless it is tied to a principle, you do it for a short time and then you blow it off. So for me, the principle was, one, that God was a God of order. Two, He wanted me to redeem the time He had given me on earth, because it belonged to Him and I just needed to steward it.

I was at the beach. Our family goes to the beach. When I was at the beach, Last-Minute Donna (those days), I remember we were going to go down to the beach from our unit to have appetizers on the beach at sunset. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?

Elisabeth Elliot: It does.

Donna Otto: Well, you know, it says in the newspaper exactly what time the sun sets. 6:57. There was Donna Otto, just rushing around in the last minute, and wasn't as prepared as I could have been or should have been. We got to the beach late. Guess what?

Elisabeth Elliot: The sun had sunk.

Donna Otto: The sun doesn't wait. The sun doesn't wait. That day, God really used that as an illustration of my life.

Elisabeth Elliot: We have about two minutes left. We've been talking primarily for these two weeks about older women teaching younger women. You've given us lots of memorable examples of the kinds of things that older women can teach younger women to do. In this last minute or minute and a half, can you just give us a little crystallized nugget?

Donna Otto: As an older woman, obey is a mandate of God. As a younger woman, obey is a mandate of God. Let this older woman point you toward Jesus. And older women, keep taking confused young women, who are being turned about in every direction, and keep pointing them to Jesus. He is the answer. He is the peace. He will be the sustainer to get us to the other side.

Elisabeth Elliot: One of my favorite verses, anytime I feel helpless and discouraged or frantic or overwhelmed, is Isaiah 41:10. "Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness."

We need the proof, the promise, that He will strengthen us. We know we can't do it by ourselves, but we can do it with Him. Are you willing? Are you ready to say, "Yes, Lord, I really do want You to shape my life. Shape me in the image of Christ."? May God give us all grace to receive whatever discipline God wants to give to us, that our lives may be free from clutter, free from our selfishness, and full of joy.

Lisa Barry: If the things Donna has said today seem like the answer for you, then why not purchase a copy of her book, GET MORE DONE IN LESS TIME? If you'd like information on our Mother's Day packet, we'd be happy to tell you about that, too.

I'd like to take just a minute to thank you for your support of Gateway To Joy. You might think that we're sponsored by companies or that we receive underwriting to make this program possible. But the fact is, we're dependent on people like you, who like what they hear and want to be sure the message stays loud and clear. We'll never beg or manipulate to get your support. We simply want to let you know how and where you can help.

Here's our address: Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or call toll-free: 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Our Internet ministry address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Monday Elisabeth begins a series especially for fathers, so join us then for another Gateway To Joy.