Decluttering

We've been reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan in our small group and absolutely LOVE it! The messages that Francis delivers to the reader is one that really forces us to examine ourselves and our relationship with our Creator. Some of the things he talks about is hard to confront and admit about ourselves, but he lays it all out there. The most recent chapter talks about God's love for us, how "He gave His best. He gave Himself." and "Jesus says the two greatest commands are 'love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind' and to 'love your neighbor as yourself'. And when He talks about our neighbors, He means the people that you don't get along with, the beggar in the street, the guy who cut you off in traffic, or the lady who gave you an attitude at the store- EVERYONE! So we like to go around saying how we love God and how we love Jesus, but are we showing our love to God when we don't show our love to everyone?

We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sister. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion- how can God's love be in that person?...Let's not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. 1 John 3:16-18

So what does all this have to do with decluttering? I was getting to that part. Do we realize how rich we really are? We might not live in mansions or own yachts but when we look at how most of the people of the world are living...without clean water or enough food for a day, we are rich beyond compare. We lead comfortable lives and yet we worry and we want more and more. We have people all over the world, our neighbors, that live in deplorable and cramped homes and yet we aspire to move into bigger homes or rent storage buildings to hold more of our STUFF! And we strive to continue to accumulate more stuff. If you look at it that way, it all seems a little silly and senseless, don't you think? So...getting to the point...in our small group, we talked about all the stuff we own and how we seem to feel like we NEED to hold onto things for some reason or another. Awesome A told us of a community that she drives by everyday that looks like they could use some neighborly love. We've decided to set up a yard sale in that community in order to help them get things very inexpensively, speak to them about God's love, and to donate ALL the money to charity. So that's where the decluttering comes in. That's what we are doing in our homes. We are all very excited about this opportunity and in showing our children what God means by loving our neighbors.

If you would like to contribute items to our yard sale, let me know. We will be having it on Sunday, May 22nd, if you want to get it to me before then. Another little golden nugget of advice I learned from the homeschooling conference: Less Things = More Time. So if you declutter your home and have less things in your home to bog you down, you free up more time for other important things. ;)

~H