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Junk and Stuff

We have become pros at moving. Or so we like to think. Unpacking and getting everything in   it’s place was a goal for the week. We wanted to be settled before the weekend family get together and definitely before Christmas. 

We have downsized with each move these past five years and especially this last one. Knowing we would have less room and storage in this new house, we sold, donated and tossed a lot before the Movers even loaded up the truck. But as each box was unpacked, I’d see one more thing that needed to be dealt with. Keep, sell, donate or toss? I had piles all over the house. 

I also had a drawer for stashing stuff I just wasn’t ready to “deal” with. I can’t label it a junk drawer but that is exactly what it is. Junk I need to deal with at a later time. My goal at hand was to get everything looking just right. I had this idea in my head of what that should look like. I mean the stager at the Houston house used all of my stuff to make things look so good, surely I can too right? 

To me the kitchen is the hub of the house so if I could just get that area looking good while also being functional I’d be golden. As I put things in their place, I also stashed stuff in that junk drawer until it couldn’t close. I moved things from one room to the next not wanting to deal with it until later. The problem for me as a procrastinator is that “later” rarely comes. I know I will have to deal with it eventually but for right now I just want to make this one area look good.

I think I can also do that in life. Make one area look good while stuffing other stuff to deal with at a later time. That time only comes when the drawer is overflowing to the point I am spilling out my junk on others. Someone hurts me so I stuff it rather than dealing with it in a healthy way. I hang onto it, then lash out in an even more hurtful way. Now my junk is all over and someone has to deal with. 

I love that God knows me better than I know myself. He knows my heart and my motivation behind everything I do. He cares about my heart and not what I look like on the outside to others. My life though pretty amazing, isn’t perfect and I don’t want to make it look like it is. While I might be able to make things  “look” good. God knows the junk I’m trying to hide that still needs to be dealt with. But here’s the thing, He wants me and you to live a junk free life. He wants to carry that junk for us. Isn’t that cool? We aren’t meant to carry all of that stuff. We can take it to Him, He has already dealt with it and then He shows us how to do the same by following Him. This life isn’t meant to be lived just looking good. It is meant to be functional and purposeful and healthy.  It starts with giving it all to Him, even our junk. He knows better than us how to deal with it. 

-Pressing On 



“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.””
1 Samuel 16:7 NIV


“You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.”
Psalm 139:2-3 NIV



“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10 NIV

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