There is something rather disconcerting about touching every single thing one owns and deciding if it dear enough...functional enough...useful enough....valuable enough to make the cut to the new location. I have moved many times in the past but I have not done it well. I find it difficult to sort things well, to do it with the kind of planning that makes sense at the other end. My husband grew up in a family of movers. He can pack up the entire contents of someone else's home in a matter of hours. Swiftly working through the rooms he puts together cartons, sizes things up, wraps them up and labels them and calls it a day. However, not so on the homefront. When we set about packing up our things, each little thing holds some sort of story or memory or level of importance and we must decide what to group it with and what room it will belong in and how to pack it to keep it safe until we pull it out again at the end of our move.
Being an avid reader, I thought surely the best thing to do was to read a book about moving. I will get the information I need to formulate a plan and then it will be a piece of cake. This woman in the pages of her book told me I should look at each item and ask the question, "Can I possibly imagine living my life without this item?" This will effectively help me pare down to the things that are most important and help me cut out the things that are frivolous and less useful in my life. And so I set about doing this very thing. At first, I thought the craft room would be the best place to start. How much will I be crafting while packing up to move, right? I suppose this made sense in theory but in truth this room holds all the things I scrapbook with, my pictures of my entire life from its beginning. It holds the scrapbook of the year that my child was born. Within this room are all the report cards my child has ever received, every piece of art her sweet little hands have made, at any age, all the momentos of the life my husband and I have made together from its start...and so much more. Going through these things with objectivity is a task for someone with much greater fortitude of the heart than me.
So I moved to the living room (with the craft room in shambles and packing incomplete I might add), thinking that the books and things in that room would lend themselves to a greater level of objectivity and I would experience a greater level of success in my mission. The problem with the living room is that, well, this is where we live. This is where I help my daughter with her homework and prepare lessons for my students. This is where we enjoy a movie or a game and sometimes even eat supper. This is the room where the bills are paid. This room is too.....just too everyday to be able to go through the contents and weed out the needed from the wanted from the seldom ever even used.
Leaving that room to continue life in while we uproot everything else just seemed the wisest thing to do...so I moved on to the sunroom. Again, this is not a room that just has to be used daily. These things could be packed up, boxes taped up, labeled and pressed tightly into a corner, allowing room to put more boxes from rooms that must be used more daily like the kitchen, and of course the living room. I set about doing this, but found that each drawer held specific contents that belonged together... a drawer of comedy movies...a drawer of dramas....a drawer of workout videos (mostly not ever used, along with the various cords and bands that go with them). The things in this room were mostly not used but everything was in its place and it seemed foolish to spend my time going through things that were so neatly ordered. So what if many of those things are not important to me? I can deal with that at the other end.
Sitting down after a long day of packing that resulted in very few packed boxes, I comtemplated my dilemma. I am comfortable with things as they are. Although when I walk into other's well-kept homes with tidy shelves I want that for myself, I am not willing to go through the things in my home and look at them with the clarity required to eliminate the things that are cluttering up my life.
That is when it hit me that this represented the whole of my life. I want my life goals to be ever before me with a kind of focus that causes me to almost be unaware of the things that don't matter. I want to spend my time focusing on the things that God has pressed into the depths of my heart to be my life's mission. I want to live my life well for His glory and to have clarity and vision that eliminates the things that are unnecessary, unimportant, and rich only in temporal value.....and yet....these things are much too dear to let go of and these things are too much a part of my everyday life to sift through....and these things....well, they are compartmentalized so well in my life that it will just mess everything up to start pulling out that stuff. It is all better left alone. So mostly I do. I will sometimes bear up and have the courage, after constant pressing from the Lord to throw something out that is useless in my life but often I quietly pull it back at the last moment or keep it nearby just in case, thinking it can all be sorted at the other end. I am coming to see that often I accept what is good in place for what is best in my life. I have just too much clutter in my life as a whole. My life is full of good things, things that I see as absolutely needed to the fiber of my life and much of it keeps me too busy to enjoy the very best things God has for me. And truly, do I want to arrive at the other end realizing that not doing the hard work at this end left me with a cluttered life that did not allow what truly mattered to show forth?
And so on Monday I will begin again, looking at each item in my home and in my life with the question, "How will this item enhance my new home? Is it necessary to my life? Is it a good item that keeps me from allowing the best items to show forth?" I will also ask these questions in regards to my heart. "How does this habit enhance my spiritual walk? Is it necessary to my life? Is this something good in my life that gets in the way of God's best?"
I feel sure I still won't pack up the entire contents of my home in a matter of hours. Nor will my spiritual house be in perfect order in a matter of days. But I can take God's hand and allow Him to determine what stays and what goes and trust Him to always have His best for me in mind.
As for the house....I think someone better bring me some more trash bags......
Being an avid reader, I thought surely the best thing to do was to read a book about moving. I will get the information I need to formulate a plan and then it will be a piece of cake. This woman in the pages of her book told me I should look at each item and ask the question, "Can I possibly imagine living my life without this item?" This will effectively help me pare down to the things that are most important and help me cut out the things that are frivolous and less useful in my life. And so I set about doing this very thing. At first, I thought the craft room would be the best place to start. How much will I be crafting while packing up to move, right? I suppose this made sense in theory but in truth this room holds all the things I scrapbook with, my pictures of my entire life from its beginning. It holds the scrapbook of the year that my child was born. Within this room are all the report cards my child has ever received, every piece of art her sweet little hands have made, at any age, all the momentos of the life my husband and I have made together from its start...and so much more. Going through these things with objectivity is a task for someone with much greater fortitude of the heart than me.
So I moved to the living room (with the craft room in shambles and packing incomplete I might add), thinking that the books and things in that room would lend themselves to a greater level of objectivity and I would experience a greater level of success in my mission. The problem with the living room is that, well, this is where we live. This is where I help my daughter with her homework and prepare lessons for my students. This is where we enjoy a movie or a game and sometimes even eat supper. This is the room where the bills are paid. This room is too.....just too everyday to be able to go through the contents and weed out the needed from the wanted from the seldom ever even used.
Leaving that room to continue life in while we uproot everything else just seemed the wisest thing to do...so I moved on to the sunroom. Again, this is not a room that just has to be used daily. These things could be packed up, boxes taped up, labeled and pressed tightly into a corner, allowing room to put more boxes from rooms that must be used more daily like the kitchen, and of course the living room. I set about doing this, but found that each drawer held specific contents that belonged together... a drawer of comedy movies...a drawer of dramas....a drawer of workout videos (mostly not ever used, along with the various cords and bands that go with them). The things in this room were mostly not used but everything was in its place and it seemed foolish to spend my time going through things that were so neatly ordered. So what if many of those things are not important to me? I can deal with that at the other end.
Sitting down after a long day of packing that resulted in very few packed boxes, I comtemplated my dilemma. I am comfortable with things as they are. Although when I walk into other's well-kept homes with tidy shelves I want that for myself, I am not willing to go through the things in my home and look at them with the clarity required to eliminate the things that are cluttering up my life.
That is when it hit me that this represented the whole of my life. I want my life goals to be ever before me with a kind of focus that causes me to almost be unaware of the things that don't matter. I want to spend my time focusing on the things that God has pressed into the depths of my heart to be my life's mission. I want to live my life well for His glory and to have clarity and vision that eliminates the things that are unnecessary, unimportant, and rich only in temporal value.....and yet....these things are much too dear to let go of and these things are too much a part of my everyday life to sift through....and these things....well, they are compartmentalized so well in my life that it will just mess everything up to start pulling out that stuff. It is all better left alone. So mostly I do. I will sometimes bear up and have the courage, after constant pressing from the Lord to throw something out that is useless in my life but often I quietly pull it back at the last moment or keep it nearby just in case, thinking it can all be sorted at the other end. I am coming to see that often I accept what is good in place for what is best in my life. I have just too much clutter in my life as a whole. My life is full of good things, things that I see as absolutely needed to the fiber of my life and much of it keeps me too busy to enjoy the very best things God has for me. And truly, do I want to arrive at the other end realizing that not doing the hard work at this end left me with a cluttered life that did not allow what truly mattered to show forth?
And so on Monday I will begin again, looking at each item in my home and in my life with the question, "How will this item enhance my new home? Is it necessary to my life? Is it a good item that keeps me from allowing the best items to show forth?" I will also ask these questions in regards to my heart. "How does this habit enhance my spiritual walk? Is it necessary to my life? Is this something good in my life that gets in the way of God's best?"
I feel sure I still won't pack up the entire contents of my home in a matter of hours. Nor will my spiritual house be in perfect order in a matter of days. But I can take God's hand and allow Him to determine what stays and what goes and trust Him to always have His best for me in mind.
As for the house....I think someone better bring me some more trash bags......
Wonderful Post!!! We have put our home up for sale and I am doing the same thing.... And for me, I find so many things have a beautiful story behind them and because of that, I have a hard time parting with it. I still have gifts that Adams Apineru gave me as a child. LOL I just can't seem to let go of them. It's like letting go of my wonderful memories of him as a child.... I know everything will go wonderful for all of you!
ReplyDeleteHugs,
Yvette