Today's post finds me exhausted and wanting a nap. My head was spinning with thoughts.
We (at least, me) have been working our home to a more simple home. Less is more. Less things to clutter our home & our minds, freeing up more time to do more things that are important to us, instead of looking at the piles of things we've amassed and thinking 'I've got to do something with that stuff'.
One of my big challenges was my oldest daughters room. She's a very emotional hoarder. She wants to save junk mail because it has a pretty picture, receipts from when my mom bought my grandma a Mother's Day card at the Dollar Tree. She can't part with anything, it seems. So when I cleaned her room the other week, I got rid of all the things that were piling up. She was fine with her new clean room and hasn't noticed that so much stuff is just gone. She told me she's happy she can find stuff again.
Part of the new agreement, is that if it's something you care about, you don't leave it out of place. (I found socks crammed in desk drawers, pajamas on hangers, good clothes in drawers... a mess.) That's worked so far. Til today.
Earlier I sent her into her room to put away some clean laundry in her newly organized & thinned out drawers. 30 minutes later (I was busy trying to get little ones down to naps, clean up after lunch, do laundry etc.) I call to her and she comes out. She goes back to the table and resumes her work, so I go to her room to find a couple of photocopied pages from a coloring book out and that had been partially colored. I was so angry at this point, that I ripped them up and threw them away.
She got upset, and then I got even angrier.
After my reaction, I started thinking, is this how Jesus would have reacted? No. Ofcourse not. But then I thought about it some more. You have to take the temptations away. Like with dieting, trying not to fall into the same old sin- trap, staying focused means eliminating the temptation. Whether it's chocolate, hanging out with old drinking buddies, or crayons stashed in your desk. I thought about it some more, and felt okay with my decision. I'd just had the same conversation with her before we started schoolwork. Was her room clean? Yes it was. Everything in it's place? Yes. Found dolls just thrown in the FLOOR! So they had just gotten packed away into the yardsale pile.
Any successful dieter will tell you, you have to eliminate the junk foods from your house. Period. Just knowing that you have a stash of chocolate somewhere will tempt you. It's all or nothing.
There's a bigger picture, and there are forces working against us to keep us from obtaining that bigger picture. Whatever those forces are chocolate or crayons. If you can't say no to them, then they have no place in your life.
Now I'm not going to throw all the crayons away. But maybe I take all the writing utensils out of her room. (I would prefer having them all stored together then have bits & pieces in every room anyway.)
Sometimes you have to get tough to get things done. Sometimes we've been la-la-la-ing along, and now we have to take back some control. Maybe tomorrow it'll be something else.
I'm not preaching a life of deprivation, but there really is so very little that we really NEED, and beyond that is excess. Excess makes us comfortable. Comfort isn't necessarily a good thing. Excess isn't healthy in anyway shape or form- excess food (makes us fat) excess alcohol (makes us do dumb things), excess vitamins can make you sick, excess exercise can mean you burn too many calories.
I'm taking back my family, my house, my life & my sanity and saying NO! to more stuff.
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