A Faithful No

My last blog was about accepting invitations based on our availability (God is in My Schedule). Today I want to follow up with not accepting invitations by giving a "faithful no."  Specifically, sometimes we need to say no because saying yes doesn't feel right but we feel guilty, awkward, at ill-ease to say no.
But it doesn't need to be this way if we have set up parameters.  In the last post I explained that if my calendar is open then I say yes, even to invites I might normally say no to.  But I also need to have some parameters in my schedule?  For me, starting with Sundays, my go to "faithful no" statements are "I generally do not work on Sundays," "Sundays are a family day for me."  So then it's easy for me to give a response to an invitation:  "Thanks for the invitation, but I am not available on Sundays."
There are also times when I have carved out "me time."  This time is actually blocked off on my planner.  I do this when my schedule would feel too full if I accepted something else and so I keep the time for myself.  As a result, when I am invited to be a part of something, but it is a time when I have blocked off space for me, I am simply able to give a faithful no by saying "I am unavailable."  .
------------------------------------------------
Now for the reflective questions which you can journal about or if you'd like to share your story, I'd love to hear from you and the community would love to hear from you!  Your comment could have a major impact on someone else; most likely it will be just the right thing at the right time for one of the readers. For me, God* wanted me to know that helping even just one person is wonderfully impactful.

Reflective questions:
1.  What parameters do you have around your availability?

2.  What does God* want you to know about this (ask directly, God, what do you want me to know?)

* I use the term God as a universal term.  You may decide that Great Spirit, Allah, Higher Power, etc. better suits you today.  It is not for me to decide.