The neighbors gave Sawyer a pair of roller blades last year and here lately she’s been dying to strap them on and go for a skate. Our garage has a concrete floor, the perfect place for her to do so…but we haven’t seen it in a while. Anybody else have that problem?
On Thursdays, Wrexy doesn’t have to report to the sale barn until late afternoon/early evening so we’ve spent our morning cleaning out the garage…again. Is it just us or is that a never ending project for everyone??
The garage is where we store, uh, everything. Tools? The garage. Christmas decor? The garage. Tricycles and wagons and scooter and toy cars? The garage. Totes of kids’ clothes that we’re saving for the next baby(s)? The garage. Rakes and shovels and brooms? The garage. Decor and party supplies? The garage. Everything you might ever need to do any project ever? The garage.
It’s nice to have a space to put all of those things but man it gets crowded in there. Half the time, we’re in a hurry to clean up after a project…or we’re going to need the same equipment for a project in a few days…or we we need more totes to store the clothes the kids have outgrown or the clearance Christmas items we just bought…or the kids got really imaginative with a cardboard box and every little trinket they could find and made a mess a creative little play station.
And none of those are necessarily bad things but it ends up creating a big, jumbled mess that has to be resorted and reorganized and cleaned up again.
Isn’t that how life can be? There are so many good things we can dip our fingers into, things we can fill our time with and some of them can be life giving, but after a while it’s just…a lot. Just like we are constantly going back to the garage to declutter again, we have to do that with our time and priorities. What brings the most life to our family? What is helping us grow in our relationships with the Lord? What is benefiting us and what is stealing joy? What are the things that we can lay down in order to have a little more peace or restoration?
Just like re-cleaning the garage, it’s not always a simple task (it took us a few hours and a lot of physical labor) and not everyone will agree with what works best for you, but YOU do. Pray about it with your spouse and ask the Lord to show you what in your schedule needs weeded out, then make those changes. I promise that what you give up in obedience will be replaced ten-fold with peace and joy and life!
Just be careful not to let all of that busyness sneak in again. It’s really good at that, ya know? You’ll be back on your hands and knees scrubbing your calendar again before you know it…
We finished up a little after noon today and Sawyer got to strap on her skates and fly like the wind (read – have a death grip on my hand as I led her around in circles, ahem). Regardless, she was a joyful little ball of energy!
We’re quite glad to have the cleaning part behind us. Here’s to hoping it stays that way…