That was quite a long break from writing. Mostly it was unintentional because there was a glitch with my site of some sort that someone far more technically savvy than I solved when I waved the white flag of surrender.
But it’s all good. I probably would have written (while stressed) about changes going on at work or some personal issues I was having so God undoubtedly had a hand in my not being able to type away and publish. Looking back, it has been a strange few weeks internally~ not anything you’d recognize while chatting with me on Facebook or even over a cup of coffee but my brain and heart have joined forces to keep me awake nights with this incessant, insistent urging to minimize.
Not the little kind of minimize which, to me, means cleaning out closets and donating clothes. I’m talking about looking around my house and appreciating it for housing me over the last 7 years but no longer feeling connected to it. I’m talking about looking at our accumulated stuff and wondering how necessary most of it is…or isn’t.
Visualize a cup. Throw some gratitude in there. In fact, throw a lot of gratitude in there. The cup is nearly overflowing with it but I have so many more ingredients to add; there’s burden, there’s a spirit of wastefulness, there’s even resentment. I’m resenting all of our stuff! My brain and my heart are telling me that this cup of gratitude is crowded~ I’m feeling this nearly overwhelming push to ask myself what it’s all about and to dump out the cup and begin again. To begin with a more minimalist attitude so that the cup can just be full of gratitude.
Yesterday, a young woman who shouldn’t be carrying around the wisdom she has at such an early age, drove this point home again. Church services on Sunday focused on it, the program I watch every weekday morning has been talking about it~ in other words, it’s everywhere I turn. God is trying to get my attention. He really, really wants me to ask myself how important the “stuff” is.
Our stuff felt different to me a few months ago than it does lately. Lately, it feels like 
a wool blanket thrown over me in the oppressive heat of July. No, I don’t want to sell everything and live like a monk or travel Europe with a backpack to my name or take residence on the street with a cardboard box. BUT I would like to de-clutter my life and undo the imaginary tether that links me to responsibilities and commitments that are unnecessary. My family is now grown; my two children educated and ready to embark on their life journeys. We did a good job. We are grateful and blessed.
We may have reached the time to release some of the “stuff” and rediscover “simple”.
Be blessed,
Amy