An Uncluttered Heart and Home

This is my desire, purpose, hope...for the coming  year.

I do hesitate to boldly state such a "resolution".  That which is screaming loudly at me right now, may be overtaken by something else months from now.  Still, the present is where I live, and it is clearly the place where God is asking me start 2012.

In many ways I find it frustrating to have finished off the past year, and see how cluttered all of me had become.  Coming from a person who strives to hear God's voice throughout the day, I wonder how I could have strayed.  And yet, yes, I am fully human...broken, and often self-inclined.  So why should I be surprised?!!

Gratefully, it is a new year, full of so much hope.  I don't say that  nonchalantly either.  I have crawled into many a new year, with very little hope.  But this year seems to hold a freshness within it, and I anticipate God-with-me in the unfolding days.

It was His Spirit (through words from my son) that has challenged me to unclutter my heart, and yes, my home as well.  Until the past week, some of the clutter in my heart had gone unnoticed.  The way in which my love for God has been replaced by affections for other things, in some of the corners of my heart.  The way I had begun to succumb to voices other than His to direct some of my daily decisions.  The pseudo rest I had settled for in my life, the excess amounts of worry and self-analyzing, the ways in which I had failed to allow His truth to permeate the lies.  Oh...so much clutter which cut of my freedom to live fully!

Then there's my home.  Perhaps some fail to see how closely these two are connected.  I have often said that my home is an extension of me.  It truly is.  And though I usually think of this in positive terms, in this case, some of the clutter in my home reflects the clutter of my heart.  Oh, it's not seen by the average eye.  (That's often the way with the heart as well).  There are drawers and closets, and storage areas that continue to collect, and very much need to be purged.  It does bother me...the clutter behind closed doors.  It has been quietly  affecting me in even somewhat claustrophobic ways.  Perhaps because I know that to a large extent, all of "this" could be donated to second hand stores and actually be used by someone.   Oh, and the desire and need to simplify (aka) unclutter, is so necessary within my home.  Sigh.

I'm not going to lament all of the above, or browbeat myself for what is now at the forefront of my mind.  This is the time to unclutter.  This is the time to open wide my heart for God to do His work in me...and my home.  And because the time is here, I am more than ready to embark.  In fact, I have already begun uncluttering these past few days.  A slow, but steady process lies ahead. 

"O God of Second Chances
and New Beginnings,
     Here I am again."
--Nancy Spiegelberg