Have a Happy News Year!
We've read through the holiday cards, cooked, ran the roads, stuffed the stockings and our faces and now, as my friend capsulized, Whew, that's over!
As we are putting away the new goodies, let us take stock of what we are shoving aside and maybe, decide not to keep everything that is sitting there. Here is my friend's maxim of what to save and what to toss: Do you love it?
Will you use it?
Can you live without it?
I can tell you from recent experience, that we fail to realize just how much STUFF we keep. When you move, you have to touch everything that you own and make those judgements and, it is an exhausting process.
Some people do this part of cleaning when they have a Mad on...you know, when your husband has really ticked you off about something so at the moment, you have no emotional focus to what you are handling and therefore no attachment. Out Spot, Out!! You may later have Tosser's Remorse but likely, you can live without it.
During this transition time I have learned that since I occupy a small part of someones existing home, that I can in fact do without a lot of things that I thought I could not. In the small view, I brought much less clothing. Three pair of jeans, two nightgowns, mix and match sweaters, and interview suit. In addition, the archives of life's legal things and family pictures that I could not easily replace, a few books and that's it. Ok, well, the plants in her front yard and the ones crammed into the light of the sliding doors.
The larger view? I am paying storage, so in the end, when I reload and move those things to my new living space and open the boxes, I can go through what I have already gone through before. After all, if I have lived without it this long, do I really need it now? For my friend, Miss A, if you have spice containers without bar codes on the tins, toss them out!! When were bar codes on goods of purchase initated?
The patent was in 1952, first use was in 1966 but there was no standardization so Universal Product Codes were developed and then first used in 1974 on a pack of Wrigley's gum (thank you sista for the research)...so, not sure I would want to eat anything that is 38 years old unless it has a cork with a very good wine behind it!
The patent was in 1952, first use was in 1966 but there was no standardization so Universal Product Codes were developed and then first used in 1974 on a pack of Wrigley's gum (thank you sista for the research)...so, not sure I would want to eat anything that is 38 years old unless it has a cork with a very good wine behind it!
However, there is a balance in this tossing process and the maxim #1; Do you love it?, is an important criteria.
It might be a dish of plain old rocks to someone else who looks at it, but when I look at this glass dish with ovals of smooth stones that went into a packing box, I see in my mind's eye the hot June day when I was collecting them at the shore of the English Channel.
The water was cold on my feet but the sun hot on my back. I took photographs of children; who like all children universally, sometimes take off all their clothes but their underpants and squat low on their haunches close to the water. Exploration knows not the confinement of traditional swimwear. Their giggles and shrieks echo off the memories of a day now held still in the hour glass of time that come to life when I rub one of the stones between my thumb and forefinger as a conveyance of peacefulness, not an object of worry.
If you love it, keep it anyway. It will bring you joy when you look or touch it.
If we don't love it, or it gives us bad hoo-joo feelings when we look at it or touch it, we can toss it! Toss out the things that hold us back, weigh us down, bring us sadness or make us feel less than the best of ourselves.
Look in the mirror, commit and give voice to that woman in your mirror that she is a great woman; not perfect, but give her a break! Help her flourish! Every day. Toss those things and thoughts that weigh her down or tear her down. Every day.
In replacement, speak aloud to her the things God would have her know. Make this the Good News year. The Happy News year. Find the truths that encourage and bless you the most. How many do you know? How many can you find in a Bible that mean something to you personally; that give you hope, give you peace, give you the love in your heart that sustains you beyond a spouse, friends, a job or pet?
Behold, the glory of the Lord!
Leaving those things which are behind, I reach toward the high calling of our Lord, Christ Jesus.
Would a father give his child a scorpion for an egg?
Beloved, above all things, I wish that thou shall prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospers.
The last enemy to be conquered is death.
I sought the Lord and He heard me, and delivered me from all of my fears.
He healeth all our diseases.
He is my song in the night.
He healeth all our diseases.
He is my song in the night.
Surround yourself with what you love. Surround yourself with truth. Make it a year of good news in your life!
When the rains persist, as they did this morning, look for beauty in it anyway. Things often change quickly, as rain to snow. Tomorrow will come. Things will change.
God is good, always.
