Life in His Hand

As I look at the clutter around me, I just want to have it disappear, but it's pretty stubborn. It sticks around and grows. Lately, I have given a lot of thought to further simplifying my life and surroundings. Not only attacking the clutter in my home, but the clutter in my heart and mind as well. The clutter taking up my emotions and motivations, helping me forget my true priorities and robbing me of the space I need to give to what really matters in my life. I want to have less. Less dishes. Less books. Less papers. Less clothes. Less useless and unused junk. Less worries about what others think. Less concern over other people's expectations. Less need to be someone other than who I am. This will carve out the space needed for who God intends me to be. God has given me what I can carry. He has assigned my place here and has given me this lot. I have managed to allow the junk to clutter up what He intends to be small and manageable until it feels overwhelming. So today, I...

It always gets worse before it gets better. I have been working to reorganize my kitchen cabinets for what seems like ALL day, and I'm still not done yet. What I have finished, looks nice, but...the rest of the kitchen looks like a bomb went off. I am purging as I go, getting rid of dishes and gadgets we don't need and tossing out old, outdated, food. It will be nice when it's all done. Then I can move onto another area of the house that needs work. Hoping to keep this up so by springtime I won't have much left to do. Simplicity is something I long for. Which is one reason I am wanting to downsize and get this place organized. Lately, I have become really intrigued by the 'Tiny House Movement' and have been inspired to have less. I also love the Amish' simple lifestyle and over the years, I've read a number of good books on paring down. All of these and the very real fact that I live in a very small (though not quite "Tiny") house, has plante...

Happy New Year! I am wondering what you'd like to accomplish this year. I know one of the major things I want to do is really declutter my house and get more organized. I want a house I can keep clean easily which means everything needs a home. Well, in a small house with too much stuff, that means...something's gotta go! I actually started the process last week. I rearranged my tiny living room, which I didn't think was possible, and found that the new arrangement "forced" me to get rid of a bookshelf and table and the room looks a lot neater. I just need to work on the "entryway"--if you can call it that :) It's just a space behind the front door. The horrible problem I am having is my bedroom! Things are a mess and this is where the cutting will really need to happen as well as the need for creativity. All of my things (even Christmas stuff) are basically stored in my small room, so this will be a challenge for me, but worth doing because whe...

Lately I've been feeling a little scattered--like the leaves of fall. So many thoughts fluttering in all different directions. Wondering where I belong. Wondering what I should be doing. Wondering , wondering, wondering. It is said that someone cannot do too many things at once and do them all well--I have been wondering where to trim, and how to whittle my activities down to make sure my highest priorities get top attention. So for me, this requires lots of prayer--asking for wisdom and God's plan for my life. It's so easy to get side-tracked. Over this past week, I've been feeling a little burned-out. I think it's partially because of all the emotional stress I've been under. Also, I tend to let the amount of kids I teach or who comes to our Saturday night youth program, get to me--lately our group has really shrunk. So I was sort of losing my spark. Today, with a very small group in class, I was blessed to have two wonderful helpers who stepped in and parti...

A few nights ago, I watched "Coal Miner's Daughter"- the Loretta Lynn story - with my family. I grew up watching that movie and listening to her music. So for me, it was a real treat to share it with my daughters. To see their reaction to her getting married at 13, to see her life unfold with her making her dream of becoming a country singer, come true, though that same dream, later would take it's toll on her. One thing I appreciated about the story, this time, was the fact that though there were many problems in Loretta's marriage, the love came through and triumphed. When Loretta collapsed onstage and Doo carried her off - you knew theirs was a love that was deep, comfortable, real and lasting. It had survived many tests and still made it.  Loretta Lynn's childhood spoke to me of the simple things in life. A hardworking and loving father providing for his family and keeping food on the table. A mother tending to her children, showing her love by being th...

The more I try to declutter, organize and get rid of the junk - the more it seems to come from outta nowhere! So this spring I am going to be working REALLY hard to unload it. I have a lot of stuff that's just sitting around waiting on the porch to go to the second-hand store. Then there's the little stacks and piles here and there around the house. I think if I could haul it away, right when it's ready, instead of letting it sit and accumulate, it wouldn't feel so overwhelming. We will also need to take a couple of loads to the dump. Seems we do this yearly. My question is: where does it all come from?? Once I can get the junk out, then maybe I can actually get more organized and find a place for everything. Since I live in a small house, I will either have to get really creative (not so likely) or toss more stuff (not so likely, either!) Well I will have to cross that bridge when I come to it! This also makes me think of spiritual decluttering. What are the th...

Yes, it has been awhile since I've felt inspired (motivated) to begin again in the room. Thankfully all that I did before hasn't been undone. My closet is still neat and organized. I was able to gather a lot of stuff to donate to a second-hand store, which I still need to drop off. So today, my goal is to sort through several boxes of junk. And find a place for the stuff or toss it. Basically decluttering. I printed some cool labels, maybe I'll have a chance to use those. I will be back to update this blog and let you know how it went... Until we meet again :) * Good news! Made some progress! And I am actually almost done. Some of these boxes have been toted around, unsorted and undealt with for YEARS. So I am pretty happy to have finally done it. Still have things to do...find prettier storage containers, like baskets and sort through my books. Did I forget to mention my room doubles as a library? I have two tall shelves, overflowing. I'll be back :) ** YAY!! ...

It's one day after Christmas and I am feeling so motivated to work on my bedroom. We live in a really small house. We moved here about 6 months ago from a house twice it's size, almost (and I thought that house was too small). But God had a plan for us to live in this even smaller house. When we moved we got rid of a ton of stuff. But unfortunately we ran out of time and so the boxes of mostly papers that I didn't have time to sort all came here, plus the things I couldn't decide on. So that leaves me where I am today. I have a very small bedroom that doubles as a storage. My closet is tiny and I have storage boxes stacked up in there, too. Barely any room to hang our clothes, so there's a good excuse why I also have clothes piled up here and there. What I'd like to do is buy some type of wardrobe/closet thing and just use the tiny closet for storage. Today I am going to get started on sorting. I should add pictures so you can more fully sympathize, but wow! t...

                                              Hmm... an average day. But it's the only one I have. It's Monday so that means the house is messier than usual because I don't believe in cleaning much on the weekend- haha. So what I should do is clean of course. I need to do laundry and I would like to work on figuring out just how to organize my tiny bedroom with it's micro closet. I believe it can be done but... where to start? Well the right question would be- what to toss? I have an armoire which is full and three tall bookshelves taking up one wall because my living room is too small to house them and I love my books! I wish it were easier to simplify. I wish I knew how to need less. I have a few storage boxes full of papers- I hate sorting. So those always get put off until never. When we were planning on moving to this tiny house, I pretty much became addicted to wat...