Weeding Out

Perhaps this is the time of year when most people do their "spring cleaning". A time when we look through what we have and decided what we need to get rid of. I don't know if Dan and I are "spring cleaning" but we are weeding out things from our house. I have boxes of things from childhood, previous jobs, and school. I found old stuffed animals and clothes that I haven't worn in a year.

As we are finding time to grab a box and sort things out we have been making piles. Piles to be donated, piles to dump, and piles to sell. It feels good to be weeding out our life. There is a calm that comes for me in being released from these things. I remember an old Adventure's in Odyssey broadcast (some of you know what I am talking about :)) that dealt with this topic. Adventure's in Odyssey was a radio show on in the evenings from Focus on the Family. They were always good and fun to listen to, but the one that I remember is when a guy had his "things" start talking to him. His toaster had demands about being cleaned out and his car was upset about something else. The guy on the show was running around trying to take care of everything.

The message that I hear loud and clear is that having "things" needs to be balanced...we shouldn't let our "things" control our life. As I have been looking at all my "things" I have to ask myself why I want to keep it. Why have I wanted to move it the past several moves? Why is it important to me? And the perspective that helps me let go the fastest is, why does it matter? Is this "thing" I have been storing in a box helping me fulfill God's call in my life or keeping me tied down away from it?

I want the freedom that comes from not having to maintain "things". As an RD I made sure to have furniture and other items in my house that if they were broken I wouldn't mind...not that I didn't have nice things, I just needed to be a step removed. I wanted to keep in mind that spending time with my staff and loving them was more important then the food they might spill on my couch or the mud on my floors.

What matters is not having a house full of things that when I am gone for a year I don't miss. So much of what I have been throwing away are things that I couldn't have told you I even had. I have been living with out them so why continue to keep them? I do have things that I have sentimental value in and those I keep. But I can't express the amazing freedom of being released from "things". To let what doesn't matter in my life slip away allowing space for the many things that do.