Growing pains

Every day the Lord is working on me, refining with fire, molding me. And by golly it hurts sometimes. Now although there are lots of areas where I need work, He seems to be focusing on one area right now. I've found He has a tendency to do that. So right now He's teaching me to let go. You see, I'm a little bit partial to my "stuff." You know, all that junk that accumulates around the house. Just so you know, I didn't use to call it junk. It's all part of the process.

It all started with my friend telling me she was having a yard sale. So I asked if I could put a few of my things in it. Well, truth be told I guess it started before this. G sr has been hounding me for years to get rid of stuff. So finally, after being completely frustrated, he threatened to start getting rid of stuff while I was gone. Well that just wouldn't do - at least not for me. I got up some courage and started going through the kids' rooms. That was all fine and good but there was the whole rest of the house to deal with.

Back to my friend's yard sale. Her and another dear friend sat down with me at church and "encouraged" me to gut my house. Well they had me in tears just thinking about it but I was willing to do it. Let me just mention that this frustrated my sweet love immensly. He'd been trying to get me to do it for years to no avail. So now when I was willing to do it when my friends told (I mean encouraged) me, but wouldn't do it for him, he, well, he just shook his head. I don't want to know what was going on inside his head.

I guess it's the stubborness in me. Sometimes though it takes hearing something from someone else for us to really get it. Plus, friends usually have an alternate form of encouragement and a different perspective. Did you like that: alternate form of encouragement? I thought it was pretty smooth.

Anyway. I went home from church that day and went to one drawer in my kitchen. Having just one drawer to go through was easy enough. I was able to go through it and get rid of about half of the stuff in there and then organize it. Wow. That was monumental. Felt pretty good too. So I moved on from there and eventually went through all of the drawers and cupboards in my kitchen. Now if you've seen my kitchen you'd know that this really didn't take too long.

So, long story short, I made my way through the house filling boxes and bags and whatever else I could find. Then I shoved it all in the garage. My intent was to put it in my friend's yard sale. That didn't work out. So then I thought I'd do my own yard sale. That never came to pass. So all of this junk was just sitting in the garage. My honey's garage. And it was taking up valuable motorcycle space.

Eventually G sr had enough and one Friday morning and he started loading up the van. AAAAHHHHH! I almost had a panic attack. I had gotten the stuff boxed up and out of the house (technically). What more did he want??

This is what became of that refining day...

Our van. Completely full. Of my stuff. I mean junk.

I took it to Goodwill. Cried on the way home. But only for a second. I'm blessing someone else, right?

*sigh*

I know. I have issues.