The birthday trifecta is about to descend on the Zwemke family. Every year I determine to get a head start on the festivities so that I won't consider checking myself into a mental institution after the dust clears. It is a wonderful thing to celebrate birthdays and we have four of them in our family within three weeks, plus our anniversary right on the heels of the last birthday. So in efforts to get ahead of the game, I began ordering all the birthday presents in one lump sum last night.
I don't know how you handle things in your home, but whenever I start thinking of adding all the new toys and gifts into the home inventory, I immediately think of things we must get rid of in order to make space for the coming bounty. Many things I know would not be missed, but some things, although unused, would cause some tears if removed permanently. I believe it is important to teach our children to be good stewards of the things they own, and to practice respecting the rights of others' ownership. So I don't want to force them to give up their toys, but I do want to teach them to hold all they own with an open hand, ready for God to take and receive as He sees fit.
Many a discussion has come about in these purging times (we do it before Christmas, too), and I'm happy to report that the show "Hoarders" has helped us in our case for giving up the little trinkets and such things that little girls love to cling to...petals from a flower picked last summer, stones from the driveway, little pine cones kept because...well because they are cute...and the like. Not to mention the toys that have been loved and need to move on because they are no longer used, or the toys that were never really loved after being opened at a previous festivity. How can we make way to receive the new, if we are not prepared to let go of the old?
The memories attached to an object can keep us too grounded in the past. It is too easy to think you need the object to keep your memory special. There are ways to help preserve a special moment without keeping yourself fettered from living in the present. So many sweet pictures drawn by little hands would fill a library, but perhaps our digital world can lend a hand. Taking pictures of the special scraps of paper and turning them into a compact picture book could help keep the clutter down, and remind the little ones that you love their offerings. But, our children need to learn to give generously, and to live freely in this materialistic world, and they will not be able to love people and like things if they are holding their possessions in too tight of a grasp.
Children aren't the only ones that hold tightly to their things. Parents, too, need to hold their possessions lightly, ready to let go when asked by the Master, for our children will see and learn from our example. But my mind began to ponder this purging to things less material. Do we not sometimes hold a past offense of a family member or friend a little too tightly? Sometimes we allow the pain of things gone by to cripple us from receiving the freedom of the life God offers now. We build a little fortress of self-righteousness and we think that the other needs to pay penance before we will let go of the offense. We seldom realize that the only one fettered by our un-forgiveness is ourselves. Lonely in our grief, we linger too long over the pain and it begins to turn to a caustic substance called bitterness. There is no room in a heart full of bitterness to receive the new gifts God wants to give. We can not see where we are going if we are constantly scrutinizing where we have been. Forgiveness purges the heart, freeing us to make room for what God offers next.
So today, I have been examining my home and my heart, and the purging of both, keeping me free from the ties that bind.
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