First, the Purging

 photo credit:  this site

How weird it was to find myself standing in my home researching where to buy products that are made by socially responsible companies, while at the same time, taking a good look around our home and admitting we had too much crap.  Why does everything have to be so ironic and complicated?  And what ever happened to Alanis Morissette?  Does anyone else wonder?

Our first realization...We need to get rid of a lot of junk.  Simplify.  Our jam-packed closets, cabinets, garage and...am I about to admit this...yes...I think I am...our storage container full of dusty crap could have probably been used by Jesus as a visual aid during the sermon on the mount if Jesus was into Powerpoint.

We needed to get rid of some stuff, but unless God climbed up in our souls and did some major renovating and healing, addressing our love affair with "pretty things", our greed, and the Kingdom we can see (a Kingdom that seems awfully attractive to us) we knew "simplifying" would only be a temporary fix.  While sticking colorful stickers on books and wicker baskets, we were also asking God to do the real work...the hard work of weaning us from this world that seems so sparkly and lovely.  Will we ever stop asking Him to do that work?

We ended up having to have several garage sales to get rid of the stuff we had labeled "extra".  The goal:  sell a bunch of "blah" that we don't need and send that money to a ministry on the ground who is personally living out our convictions to serve the least of these.  Sounds easy.  Unless you've ever had garage sales.  Then you know it's not easy.

Have you ever tried to sell your kid's toys while they watch?  Fun times.  Let me tell you.  While my kids were having meltdowns in the driveway, declaring their long-lost love for super dumb toys that had been neglected for years, I was equally irritated with my sons, and aware that I felt the same things on the inside when random strangers walked off with my old windows I had collected and my Agatha Christie books. 

This was my first run-in with a garage sale.  At this point in my life I had only been to about three before deciding to have one of my very own.  There I was, a garage sale virgin, standing in my driveway at 5:30 in the morning.  It was still dark.  A truck comes speeding down our street.  It barely slows down.  A man rolls out of it.  He jogs...jogs up the driveway with a flashlight...looking at all our stuff.  "You got any guns and knives?"  I don't answer because I'm so tired and have not had near enough caffeine in my body...so I assume I'm really still in bed dreaming.  In his gruff, slow, Texas draw, he repeats the question.  "You got any guns and knives?"  Oh.  I am awake.  I am having a garage sale.  Thankfully Aaron was there and told the man we were fresh out of guns and knives.  Sensing how stunned I was, and knowing I was about to take my wire baskets back inside the house and climb back in the bed, Kirby turns to me and says, "Sorry.  I forgot to tell you about the flashlight people."

I'm not saying putting your George Foreman grill and outdated shower curtain on your driveway is fun or easy, but three massive garage sales later...we made a ridiculous amount of money.  No one clap for us. As we counted up the loot, we were not proud or even excited at that point about sending the money away.  We were ashamed that by simply selling all the barf we didn't ever use and did not need, we made a bunch of money.   We had not sacrificed a single thing.  As a matter of fact, we could walk in our garage again.  A total miracle!

Does anyone else think it's strange that all the stuff we accumulate because we think that stuff will bring us happiness ends up stressing us out, making us mad, and giving us an ulcer?  This has nothing to do with the poor, but it's something I can't get over.  Every single time I got out of the car, I wanted to pick up one of the 80 baseball bats off the garage floor and hit Aaron with one of them.  I had my maniac moments when all of a sudden I could not stand all the stuff in our house.  Because I'm a flppin' genius, it never occurred to me that maybe we had too much junk.  It only occurred to me that my entire family is messy.  I thought the cure was more organization.  Why did it never dawn on me that the cure was a black trash bag or some garage sale stickers?  

We began asking God to show us how we could live simpler, scale down, and give more to ministries and missionaries who are loving and caring for the helpless and the destitute.   This was about as fun to consider as having a garage sale.  Yuck.  I know many of you are asking the same kinds of  questions we were asking.  Isn't it hard?  Isn't it a daily battle to remember what the Kingdom of God is like and what it's not like?  It's such a fight, moment by moment asking God to remind us what it looks like to live with eternity in mind.  Several years later, I'd love to look back and think it's gotten a whole lot easier to think through these issues, to consider heaven, consider the gospel, to give because of how much we have been given, and to say no to the lusts of this world.  Instead, I think it's an ongoing war...a fierce, nagging friction as we long for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.  How do I love my neighbor as myself?  How do I love the world, like God loved the world?  How do I consider the needs of others above my own needs?  How do we heed Jesus' warnings and live out all the things He's constantly inviting us to live out?  Learning to live by faith seems to be learning to live in a constant onslaught of questions.  Yet in the midst of this we find freedom and life?  Doesn't it seem hard to believe?

Other posts in this series:

Caring for the Poor While Living in the Good ol' U-S of A?

Who Are the Poor?

Looking for the Poor 

Hi, My Name is Heather and I'm a Modern Day Slave Owner

Helpful Links

Barn Burning