Too much stuff!
Through the years I've had
nightmare-ish dreams about having to pack up all our possessions
quickly to prepare for a imminent move.
Dreams are typically mixed
up; the location, time, and people are all in a fantasy blender. In
my dream I'm running through the house trying to decide what to take,
how to pack it, what to leave behind, and what to send ahead, all by
a deadline. I am anxious about what our four little children would
need during the travel transition. (My adult sons are always still
toddlers in my dreams!) In my dream I always have to fit the
essentials into only two small beat up suitcases—the rest had to be
left behind or disposed of in a hurry.
No wonder this scenario keeps cycling;
we were married right after college graduation and we've moved across
the country and around the world multiple times in our mission
ministry. Our children probably attended a dozen different schools.
My late husband and I weren't avid collectors of anything. I tend to
be a “thrower-out-er” but my husband was a “squirrel”--unwilling
to throw anything away. So things simply amassed as time went on.
By
the time I'm in my eighties, the accumulation is considerable. Sort
of like the barnacles clinging to and covering the bottom of an old
boat. Just before I wake up even now, I have an unsettled feeling
wondering which country or city I'm in! This in contrast to some
childhood friends who have lived in the same city and even in the
same house all their long lives.
I'm not an interpreter of dreams, but
a few things shout at me from the context. In our advanced years we
must think seriously about decreasing worldly goods and increasing in
our spiritual closeness to God. With John the Baptizer I need to
declare, “He must increase and I must decrease.” Eternal values
must take priority. I think of my elderly widowed friend who lived in
her own comfortable home among her familiar things since the passing
of her husband. With the sudden onset of serious health problems,
within three weeks her family had resettled her in an Assisted Living
complex. She was reduced to living in one room without any of the
possessions that had given her comfort and security. A weekend
“garage sale” had disposed of everything she had treasured over a
lifetime.
We can't take anything with us when
God calls us to leave this mortal life—not even two small beat up
suitcases. The only investment we have is the treasure we send ahead
to Heaven. I like the analogy of pulling up to a drive-through bank,
putting a deposit in a cylinder, pushing a button and sending it up
and over to the bank teller who deposits it into my account. The bank
may go belly up and somehow I can lose my savings, but whatever I
send up to the Bank of Heaven is everlasting.
I look around in my non-dream state
and conclude that I have too much stuff! I
need to get to it without delay. This is the time of my life
to reduce, to trim down, to dispose of the things that I have become
too attached to—give them away or throw them away. I feel the
need of putting my house in order before I’m forced to. Lord, help me learn to hold loosely the things of earth, the attachments that bind
me to the temporary.
I came across some new words to the
tune of the familiar children's ditty, “Three Blind Mice” that
gave me a chuckle but packed a wallop.
TOO
MUCH STUFF
Too
much stuff, too much stuff, more than enough, more than enough,
It’s
out of the closets and filling our space, it’s growing and spilling
all over the place,
We’re
tripping all over a terrible case…of TOO MUCH STUFF!
Too
much stuff, too much stuff, more than enough, more than enough,
The
piles are staring us in the face, they multiply at an alarming pace,
And
soon we’ll be buried without a trace…in TOO MUCH STUFF!
Too
much stuff, too much stuff, more than enough, more than enough,
It
isn’t easy to run the race, with all of this stuff slowing down the
pace,
I
think that I need some additional grace…(to get rid of ) TOO MUCH
STUFF!
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