Living it up in the desert!

 Oh, the clutter! 

Everyone who knows me well knows that I am a consistent cleaner. If I am honest, this tendency to clean all the time was born through the trauma of being removed from our home (on several different occasions) when I was a child. Those experiences were so traumatic for me that they bled over into my life as an adult, a wife, and a mother. How? In a nutshell, looking bad, it seems I increased the amount of cleaning in my home every time I had a child. AND I had FIVE! No joke, when my children were little, I thoroughly cleaned my entire home before going to sleep EVERY night. What's worse, is that many of those days I also worked a fulltime job. Before you think it-- I knew I was a good mother and my children were well cared for, but in my mind my home being clean was one more reason no one could take my children from me should officials ever show up at my door. All but one of my children are now adults and I still clean my home crazy like. About five years ago, I recognized on my own there was an error in my behavior and I immediately began to work toward reducing the amount of cleaning I did daily. At first, I tried to skip days, but that caused me anxiety. So I moved into halving the chores and splitting them between two days. For example, instead of cleaning the children's room every day, I did it every other day. At one point, I realized I would fret if I seen something out of place in their rooms when passing by, so I started shutting their bedroom doors. That helped so much. I continued to remove a chore here and there. With that, I am proud to say five years later I am deep cleaning my home once a week and mopping only one floor of our home weekly. That's a win! There are still times I seen a dirty counter and panic. In those moments, I try to remind myself it is okay to have some clutter. I now have more time to do other things like think. By having this extra time, I realized clutter in my home wasn't an issue as much as clutter in my mind. The clutter was fear.. the fear of losing my children drove me to deep cleaning my home every single day. Thank God I recognized the error in my behavior and have somewhat corrected it. But decluttering my home is different than decluttering the mind. Clutter in the mind is a different kind of ugly and it requires a different kind of cleaning out. Here are some things I have done to help declutter my mind. I hope they help you. First, decide what is important to me-- What belongings do I want to keep? You may want to sort these by person or place. For example, when it comes to my husband, I am keeping his pick up line, "Tomorrows my birthdee, what you getting me?" It was also the first conversation that he lied to me-- when I asked how old he was going to be, he responded with "23". I am hanging on to both the pick up line and the lie. They both make me laugh and they are the basis of our love story. But I am not going to hang on to the words of our first argument. In fact, I don't remember them so I can't even share them. For my children, I am holding on to each milestone. Most times with my children brought us joy beyond measure-- definitely keeping those. What belongings will you keep? Next, as I sifter through clutter, I notice some things that bring me sadness, anxiety, frustration, anger... those are all things I choose to let go of. With each, as they come up, I give them a blessing mostly "Go with God" or "God be with you" or "free me, Jesus, I let this burden go to you for safekeeping". I know this sounds easy but these are not file cabinets I can sit and file my fingers through. These are memories triggered by the world and come up whenever. In that moment, I deal with them like a misbehaving child, swiftly. I don't store them for a therapist, I don't recycle the situation in my mind as if it is happening right now, rather I look at it with a glance and immediately give it a blessing "Go with God". If the clutter really does me for a doozy, I ask myself how long I want to keep this? Does it warrant an apology? And if it does, I ponder over what God would want from me and I act to the best of my ability to correct it and move it out. Nothing ugly, manipulative, or negative belongs in your mind. That clutter can go! Last, I rely on my personal relationship with God to see me through the things I can't just sweep out, trash, or donate. With those, I meditate on 1 Peter 5:7 "Cast all your cares on Him, for he cares for you" and realize all my cares, concerns, worries, anxieties, etc., can be tossed at Him, for He cares for me and He will handle them in the way He sees fit. 

I would love to hear other ways of how we can declutter our homes, mind, and lives! What works for you? Do you have a scripture that you meditate on?