Monday, April 26, 2010

Clutter

One of the best things when I was in the Navy and a Navy wife was the opportunity to move quite a bit. I liked it. It was stressful but there were new opportunities, new friends to meet, and you didn’t accumulate a lot of stuff because the military would only let you move so much on their nickel.


Well, I’ve been in the house I live in now for over 8 years. This is the longest I have ever lived in one place since I moved away from home at 18. Unfortunately WH and DD don’t like to get rid of things and now things have begun to pile up, wait…I promised myself to always tell the truth on my blog.

All of us have accumulated an enormous amount of things, broken things, out-grown things, things we don’t use, things that are just hanging around for sentimental reasons, and papers. A ton of paper. I an terrible at organizing but I loathe being disorganized. (Yes, I am a living oxymoron). So I’ve blocked it out. I either “don’t see it”, I put it in the garage (the bottomless pit) and I just refuse to deal with it. It’s not getting better, it’s not fixing itself, and I think it might actually be multiplying

And then I got an ah-ha moment.

There are a lot of things in my head and in my heart that have accumulated over my lifetime. I have things inside that are broken, things that I have outgrown and even things that I am holding on to for sentimental reasons. Some things were major, like my abortion, my abuse, and they caused shame and despair and depression. I didn’t think that people would understand, accept, even that I would be judged about my past, about those things in the closets and garages of my mind. I didn’t want to open the doors and clean them out.

But God…

Eventually it became too uncomfortable, too painful to ignore it, to pretend it wasn’t there. I had to open the doors to my heart and the past. Yes there were some who didn’t understand, would have preferred that I just “got over it” and “sucked it up” but there were many more that said, “me too” or “thank you”, and “You aren’t alone Leigh.”

Healing started, slowly, but the healing came, and God redeemed so much of my mistakes and my pain. Isn’t it ironic that it takes overcoming something so big to help you understand how to face the smaller things?

My carpet is something that reminds me constantly that God cares about what I care about. I think the garage and the other “messes” in my house are helping me to understand that I don’t need to try to do it alone, that I can ask for help from others, and in fact, I need to swallow some more of that pride. So I will see if I can find some really organized friends to come over on a Saturday, get a date set, and really attack this. It’s blocking up too much and causing me too much unnecessary stress. It’s time to clean house. I’ve done it in my heart, now I need to do it in my home.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I love it. Love you! I use my beautiful bible everyday...it's marked, highlighted...thank you! You're am amazing woman Leigh!

Aslynn

Karen Dawkins said...

:)
we spent the entire day yesterday decluttering. OH how freeing!!!!

You are right - of course!!!!

Love you, Leigh!

Kristina Weeks said...

I like how you write to relate. It's not just sitting down and spewing... it's thoughtfully producing thought-provoking entries. In regards to the actual content... true story.
Love you.