Clutter!

     It's like a slow moving disease that spreads throughout our house if ignored -- it's the creeping, crawling chaos of clutter!  With eight of us in one house, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly corners can fill up, but I remain tenaciously bent on ensuring that the clutter doesn't get the upper hand on me.

     No small task, you say?  Then you must have children too!  And although the clutter is just stuff, there is a deeper, more spiritual side to it that has a lesson our children, and ourselves, repetitively need to be reminded of as we go about life -- 

     The lesson of holding our possessions in an open hand.

     A challenge is posed to us in I Timothy 6 that reminds us since we brought nothing into the world and can take nothing out of it ... we are to be generous and willing to share.  My desire is to get to the place where that comes so naturally to our family, that we are able to release extras without thinking about it, which is really the most natural way to deal with clutter anyway.

     There is only one method I require every time I attack a room that requires "healing from clutter" and I try to do it at least 4 times a year (basically with the seasons, but especially in spring and right before Christmas when we know there will be more "stuff" coming into the house).  I take 3 baskets into the area I am focusing on and mentally label them: #1)GARBAGE, #2)DONATE, and #3)SHARE. 

     In basket # 1, I ruthlessly toss everything that is completely unusable and take it immediately to the trash bin (especially before wandering eyes spy a potential item to salvage). 

     In basket # 2, I quickly put all items that have some value to a thrift store but would not benefit anyone we know, bag it immediately and put it right in our vehicle so that it can be dropped off the next time I go out.

 

     In basket # 3, I nicely lay out items that make me think of someone who could use benefit from it -- this is my favourite part of the job because often God will bring to mind a name of a person who could use the items we are ready to part with and it is also much easier to give away what you know someone else may enjoy receiving. 

     The key lesson for our children is also buried in basket # 3 because this is when they will get excited to give away IF there is a vision for where it is going.  You may have a local shelter for troubled moms and their children, or a family whose children are slightly younger than yours . . . regardless, our children will be far more generous (or at least learn to be) if they know someone else will be blessed by their sharing.

     I came across a beautiful poem entitled Let Them Go by Ruth Bell Graham, the other day as I was spring cleaning, and it reminded my heart of what I need to hear . . . 

Let them go --

the things that have

accumulated thru the years.
If they be only things

then

let them go.

As barnacles

they but impede the ship

and slow

it down when it should go

full speed ahead.

Why dread

the disentangling?

Does the snake

regret the shedding

of its skin?

When the butterfly eludes

its chrysalis,

does regret set in?

     The earlier our children learn the joy of sharing, and the sooner we master the ability to live clutter-free in this crazy, cluttered world, the sooner we will be as the ship in Ruth's poem -- able to move full speed ahead and not weighted down by the barnacles of stuff this world tries to attach to us!

"Do not forget to do good

and to share with others, for

with such sacrifices God is pleased."

Hebrews 13:16