Along with our newfound determination to lose weight and keep it off for good, James and I have been increasingly motivated to rid ourselves of the clutter that has been the bane of our existence for far too long. James has always hated clutter, but I've been more laidback about it until fairly recently; it annoyed me, but I figured that was just the way things were with young kids and that we'd eventually get around to clearing things away.
For about the past year, we've been able to successfully beat it back in most of the common areas of our home and have kept those areas from getting too piled up and overwhelming, but we were still struggling with numerous little piles of clutter in our master bedroom and too much disorganization in the family room.
Our family room was half-painted for months, and we had a bookcase that was mostly painted but needed to be painted the rest of the way and assembled so that we could finally unload our books from their boxes in the garage. James and I buckled down and got the painting of the room finished. He completed the bookcase and moved it into place, and we brought in our books to figure out which ones we'd keep and which we'd donate.
Then James cleared the clutter from our room and moved it to the family room so that we'd have one area of clutter on which to focus and could reclaim our master bedroom for ourselves. We've been working through it a little at a time and steadily making progress, enjoying the fruits of our labor.
Tonight, we were waiting for Rachel to finish getting ready for bed. The shelves in our closet had become a place where I put things until I got around to putting them where they belong, but somehow that step of the process never seemed to happen. I'd already made a note on my to-do list to clear out the shelves and go through things, do a little rearranging and use them for organizing Christmas gifts for now and other things once Christmas is over. I've been chomping at the bit to get started, so I started pulling things off the shelf while we waited.
I cleared off two shelves, moved (with James' help) the clothing rod to a higher shelf, got rid of enough stuff not worth keeping or donating that I could fill a decent size shopping bag, came up with a big box of things for donation and gathered like items for storage (shorts - too cold right now; maternity - don't need that currently). It was so nice to make a big dent in the shelves, and I can hardly wait to get back to it and get them finished!
Getting things cleaned up and decluttered is making me feel really good, like I'm clearing away things that have been weighing me down. It's similar to how my weight loss is making me feel, and I think both are emblems of being in a time of transformation.
One last area where I'm also working on "decluttering" is in my spiritual life. The Bible study that I'm currently doing, Breaking Free by Beth Moore, talks about the things that weigh us down and keep Christians from living an effective and abundant spiritual life, not fully experiencing the blessings of a relationship with Christ (knowing and believing in God, glorifying God, finding satisfaction in God, experiencing God's peace and enjoying God's presence). We may still do some or all of these things, but we may not be experiencing them to the extend that we can because of things that hamper us. This study really gets to the core of issues that are sometimes long-standing and is helping me figure out how I can become closer to God and truly love Him as He should be loved - and how I can experience that love to the fullest myself, and be satisfied fully by Him, so that things like the love of family and friends, material blessings and activities I enjoy are icing on the cake and not the means for my sustenance. It's opened my eyes to quite a bit, and I'm praying it brings about a lasting transformation in me.
So many good things are happening as I get older! Honestly, I should have turned 40 years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment