Thursday, July 12, 2012

letting go of stuff

In my closet hangs a plastic mug rack, which I use for hanging necklaces. 

It’s full of jewelry, mostly costume, from a time when I cared more about accessories.  Now many of the necklaces hang and never come out of the closet, so I have decided it’s time for them to go. 

I quickly and painlessly pull out about 20 necklaces that I never wear and lay them out on the bed. 

Then I grab a long strip of bubble wrap.  (Did you know you can lay necklaces out on bubble wrap, wrap them up, and transport them without tangles?)  One by one I lay each necklace out on the plastic bubbles. 

And one by one each piece becomes beautiful to my eyes, and I imagine what I could wear it with, and I wonder how I could part with it, and I think how foolish to get rid of something so pretty. 

The lust of the eyes. 

Every single necklace sings this song to me.  Keep me.  Each necklace that I have not worn for years sings the song.  Keep me. 

Where does this come from?  This insatiable desire to keep stuff, even stuff we don’t use? 

“The lust of the eyes…is not from the Father, but is from the world.”  (1 John 2:16) 

I keep wrapping.  One piece after the other.  Fighting down the desire to keep the little pretties.  When it is all wrapped up and the firm decision is made to sell the whole lot in the garage sale –the song of hoarding quiets. 

Does your stuff suddenly seem more amazing and essential when you decide to get rid of it?

2 comments:

  1. I'm a very simple don't have a lot of things gal, LOL, some might say I'm a minimalist. when we moved from Montana back to Southern California, we lived in a 3400 square foot house and was moving to a 1300 square foot rental. I refused to consider storage so we got rid of 2/3 of our stuff before we moved and we didn't miss anything, except for the whisk of all things. We had two, a large and small one. I got rid of the small one, hubby liked that over the large one, so he just bought a small whisk and life was good.

    At the garage sale before we moved, a very wise man, in hearing we were moving, said it was good not to take what was needed and that it was only things. The only thing we could take with us to heaven were the souls we might have influenced in talking to them about Jesus. I also remember exactly how much Jesus had on this earth, not much, but he knew how awesome heaven was and he knew he didn't need the trinkets of this world. So its easy for me not to accummulate stuff.

    Imagine the irony of it though in that I'm living in my husband's parents' house who were hoarders. We moved a year and a half ago to help take care of the house when they went into assisted living, filled with their stuff wall to wall, no space hardly to walk. We've been making progress on the stuff to get rid of (both passed late 2011, she was 85, he was 88, married 64 years) but I'm surrounded by things others thought were precious and I can't get rid of a thing because it doesn't technically belong to me. They had lust of the eye with their stuff and a very nice disposable income. Its really such a sad story still being played out and has influenced and affected my relationship with my husband and that is the saddest part of it all..


    so, no, no lust here.......

    I commend you for going through that what you had not used for awhile and disposing of it

    betty

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  2. The Zimbabwe team is planning to have a garage sale next weekend if you need a place to sell them. :)

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