Have you ever watch that show call Hoarders??

If you are anything like me you are trying desperately not to judge the person on the show, and wondering how on earth someone manages to get there?  How on earth did it become okay for this person to accept all of the clutter and start to get comfortable with it all.  How do you just stop caring about the neatness of your space??

Over the years, I have had developed the habit of decluttering my house three times a year.  In fact, for those who know us well, our house always looks a little different in December.

However, over the past year I didn’t have the energy to for decluttering. 2020 and 2021 have been challenging, to say the least, and going to dig up my house clutter required too much emotional energy that I simply did not have.  The past few months have taught me to preserve my energy and to expand it where it is necessary.

As it happens often in life one is forced to deal with issues that one has been avoiding.

For me it came in the form of a winter arrival that came too early, and our kids suddenly needing new winter clothes. For that to happen I needed to take stock of what we have or didn’t have, to replenish accordingly.

I began the process of decluttering my home (I did the whole house since I am a bit extra like that) and went from room to room in my home. I ended up with bags of items to let go of, keep, and save for later.  The whole process became so therapeutic and I found some things that I had forgotten about. They were buried deep at the back of the closets.

Some things brought joy and a deep sense of gratitude, but some things brought up pent-up anger and pain. Some things simply were simply taking up too much space in a closet and needed to go. Some things needed to be kept for the future because their stories are powerful and they need to be told and celebrated one day.

The task of decluttering is not an easy one. It can be physically and emotionally draining, however nothing can take away the feeling of achievement when everything has been cleared. There is a sense of peace, calm, restoration and refreshing that comes over one’s heart.  To get that sense of peace, one must do the hard work of sorting out the external and and facing things we don’t want to. Sometimes this decluttering can be a decluttering of the mind, the soul or the heart.

What has Jesus been asking you to declutter? What have you (like me) been running away from because you simply don’t have any energy to expend?

I have good news for you! Jesus is not asking you to do it in your own strength. He says, “come to me all you are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest”. 

Who couldn’t these days do with more rest RIGHT?

Here are some of my takeaways from this process of decluttering:

• Make time to deal with the hard things. Avoiding them just makes them worst and sometimes, when you begin the process, you realise that it is not as bad as you had anticipated. 
• See it positively. Dealing with the clutter is therapeutic and necessary. Clutter robs you of peace and joy that you so deserve
• Get rid of the excuses. The excuses are getting in the way of the freedom that is awaiting you on the other side.
• Clutter takes up unnecessary space, in your mind and heart, and chokes the life out of anything good.  And if you don’t deal with it, the clutter will choke the life out of you too, like we have seen in Hoarders.
• Declutter your mind. It is just as important. Consider which habits are you holding on that are no longer serving you. Which people do you need to let off the hook?
  
  

I will end with this; the clarity that came when I could see everything in my house was so rewarding, so much so that it overflowed to me doing a mental declutter.

My encouragement to you today is this: you can do hard things!  
Declutter and make space for the new!

Stay blessed!