Yesterday a trusted friend came over to help me clean out my bedroom. I have been trying to get it organized for months and finally made a call of desperation to bring in reinforcements. My friend had to be trustworthy, otherwise she wouldn't be allowed into my room of clutter.
See, we don't have a basement or an attic to throw all of our extra belongings, keepsakes, etc. in. All we have is a carport with a small storage shed where lawn tools, totes of Christmas decorations and Joel's surf board are stored. So, when I have stuff that I want to keep, I fill another nook in my room. Under the bed is already stuffed full of pictures and duffel bags (covered by a bed skirt of course), behind the chair are miscellaneous craft and teaching supplies, beside the bed are piles of journals (each with its own purpose to fulfill), and don't even think about opening my closet.
They say the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem. Here I am confessing that I am just one nervous breakdown away from being profiled on "Hoarders."
Between my husband's desire to keep everything he's owned since 1987 "just in case" and my sentimentality that has me holding onto every art project my children have ever made, every card Joel has given me in the past 20 years, and every book I have ever bought, we are becoming overwhelmed with "stuff."
My friend has the gift of throwing away, getting rid of and giving to charity. She tried to explain to me the idea that we can appreciate that something has served its purpose, and now its purpose is done. Throw it out. Give it away. Get it out. And as I do I will feel freer.
It's a novel idea. Keeping stuff tends to give me a warm feeling of security, until I have to dust, vacuum around and organize it.
But her theory is already proving to be true. I walk into my room and don't see old picture frames sticking out behind every piece of furniture or piles of books and papers that have been read, but have no home on my overcrowded shelves, and I breath a sigh of relief. Its gone. Done with. I've moved on.
I've been feeling that way about my spiritual life lately as well. Like I've hit a spiritual mid-life crisis, weighed down by the burden of unmet expectations, dashed hopes and unrealized dreams. Of course, I know that the dreams I was dreaming were not necessarily God's, but they were nice fairytale-like visions of Jesus riding in on his big white horse making the lives of all my loved ones better.
Not Biblical, but nice, don't you think?
So here I am left to figure out what to do with all of these things. I don't want to give them away, they are like old friends that I can run to for comfort every time life gets too hard, but burdening me still more when they let me down yet again.
I think of the college students I have loved and led to Christ, but have chosen to walk away. I think of the middle school students living such hard lives that the few hours a day I had to love, care for and teach them could never possibly be enough. And I think of the four growing lives in my home that I cannot possibly protect from all the pain of life to come.
And I wonder what is the point? If I can't make their lives better, then why? And what is God doing?
But lately I feel Him asking me to unpack all of these dreams and expectations and hopes for painless lives and give them to Him. Declutter the recesses of my heart and mind, open the windows of my soul and let his Spirit blow through like the Spring breeze.
And I sense Him promising that it will feel good. That He will set me free. And that when I dream His dreams I will not be disappointed.
I think I'll give it a try.
