Possessions: Day 22

It has been a packed weekend! This is the “end of school year” season. Church this morning… well let’s just say… God knows when I am trying to NOT listen to something He is trying to get through my thick scull, so he starts presenting it in all forms and presentations.  Our church is currently going through The Story. It is basically the Bible laid out in chronological order.  If you are looking for a way to read the Bible, I highly recommend it.  Today we were talking about King Solomon and how his wealth consumed him.  The question was asked : Do our blessing come before God?  Well… God gives us all of our blessings, so why would we let the things that He has blessed us with come BEFORE the one that has blessed us? It is an excellent question. It seems very simple in theory to say, “God gives us everything we have, so everything belongs to Him.” So why is that so hard to live out? Because we are human.  That is my boring, strait forward answer. We are human and it is human nature.

Here is the thing… I don’t want to be that way. I am tired of being consumed with “stuff” and all the baggage (pun completely intended) that comes with that word. I want to be what God wants me to be and live how He wants me to live. Don’t get me wrong… I don’t think God is telling me to selling all I own and move to a third world country with all of my children (though He does call people to do this… just not me… today anyway ;)). But I do think God is using this month to show me how my life is so cluttered. Cluttered not only with “things”, but with commitments and people that are not important for my purpose here on earth. 

Solomon let people in his life that that let him sway (another great point from this morning’s sermon).  It got me thinking about all the people in my life.  There are the people that help you and build you up, there are people that you are put here to help and build up, and there are people that let you sway.  Now my initial response to this is, “get those people who cause me to sway out.” But as I am sitting in my seat with my head bowed praying for clarity on who I should be “cutting out” I got that little voice saying, “hold on high and mighty little missy… maybe you should think about who would be cutting you out.” Yikes! That hurts. What am I doing that is causing others to sway? Am I living how He wants me to be living? Am I living in a way that would cause people to be encouraged to follow the strait and narrow, or am I the one that causes people to sway in their walk with the Lord? This is something I will be praying about. I know there are areas of my life that I am weak, and it is easy to just bring people along with you in the sway than to try to fight the pull, but that is not God’s intent… for any of us.

I am three weeks into Possessions month. I have gotten rid of literally hundreds of items so far, and there is still so much to go.  We live in such excess…to the point of tears. I can not tell you how many times this month I have either just started crying or been sick to my stomach at the amount of excess I am living in.  So, just as King Solomon asked for wisdom, I am too asking this of God.  I am praying for the wisdom to decipher between the clutter and the important stuff. But even more important than that, I pray for the wisdom to raise my children to know the difference and not be at the point I am.

Our closing song this morning, “I Surrender All to You”. I cried through the whole dang song.  I long to be able to do this… God is working some wonderful things in my heart. I am just a terrified little chicken on some things that I am called to do. I love the Lord, I want to do what pleases Him, but sometimes that takes some big time courage. I am terrified that I might be misreading the signs and doing the wrong thing. I would prefer God communicate through a post-it on the fridge: ”Cassie- I want you to ________. Thanks for obeying. –God” Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually work that way. So I will continue to pray and ask for the wisdom to decipher between the clutter and the important stuff.

Purge for the day: About 45 t-shirts to Goodwill. Between Eric and I, there are a lot of shirts that we don’t need from numerous events over the years. So they have been purged and will be dropped at Goodwill in the morning.

Best Effort... He was super proud of this one!

Giving his brother a trophy.

Proud Mommy Moment of the Day: Brayden had his Pinewood Derby Race today.  Brayden picked the design of the car himself and painted it himself. This was very obvious when viewing his car. :) This is a very hard thing for me to do… letting him do it on his own, especially when I know that the other cars there are going to be much faster and much more… well…. less like a kid thought of how to paint this car in his head and then attempted to carry it out. But I (we) did.  Brayden placed 6^th out of 7 places, but he also got Best Effort (because they could tell he did it himself I am sure… it was very obvious). Landen was really cheering Brayden on today, even though he really wasn’t racing very well. So when Brayden got his second trophy today, he gave one to Landen. He said, “He was a good encourager, so I will give him one too.” That kid has a good heart! Can’t wait to see what God has in store for him.

Possessions: Day 21

Today felt a little more back on track. I purged all the girl’s toys this morning. I got rid of lots of things. Some things donated some things pitched. It is a much more manageable amount of stuff in their room.

I got several cards written that I have been meaning to write for awhile. I had a PTO event all afternoon and got some good adult conversation today. :)

Cards I have been meaning to write for awhile.

Eric was super high painting the wall in the stairwell.

Good-bye red wall!

We  spent all evening painting. From 5pm-11pm… so much painting. All the kids in the house while trying to paint the first floor = large mess upstairs and early bedtime. All in all we got a lot accomplished today. Looking forward to getting back to the nine things a day tomorrow!

Possessions: Day 20

I am in a slump. This week and last week were counting toward the garage sale, I knew that and it was in the plan. But, without having a daily goal of 1)this is where I need to purge 2) this is the purpose of my purge today… I am kind of feeling lazy and unmotivated.  Today is the last official day that would count toward the garage sale, so tomorrow starts back up the focus again (I hope).

Through this fasting process (I know it has only been less than 2 months) I can really feel Satan attack in certain areas. When I feel like I am making progress, growing closer to God or learning something about myself, Satan always knows how to knock me down. He attacks me in areas that I am weak… in relationships, self-worth, self-image… it may have nothing to do with the actual fasting focus at the time (though sometimes it does), but Satan knows when you are growing closer to God, and he does what he can to stop it.  Here are the verses I am clinging to today as I am struggling

 Luke 10:19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.

And my favorite go to verse… Phillipians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

In other news… I had the awesome privilege to go with Brayden on his field trip to Onagonda Cave today. Two amazing experiences with that… 1)I have a super awesome kid! He really is just an awesome kid with a great heart (and a fascinating, never stops going, brain). He is the smallest kid (by far) in his class and he is just so confident and sure of himself and it doesn’t seem to affect him at all. I could learn a few lessons from him. 

Cold and rainy

2) God has created some pretty awesome stuff! I am continually amazed at how God takes such intricate detail in creating the wonderful visions in nature. The cave was AMAZING and I highly recommend it! Best field trip ever! 

Hope everyone has a GREAT weekend!

Possessions: Day 18

Complaint for the day: We have no living room furniture… seriously… zero.  Our living room is literally wood sub-floors (because of the remodel) with a TV in the floor and blankets in the corner. We sold it all at the garage sale. I am ready to have a couch to come home and sit on, but the garage sale didn’t make enough mullah to get a new couch… so blankets it is until I figure out where that money comes from (poor planning on my part, I know, I thought we would make enough at the garage sale).

TV, patched but unpainted walls, sub-floors and blankets... that's it!

Truth: I cheated today. I have a 6 year old boy that is EXTREMELY rough on clothes and shoes. The clothes (that always come home with the knee blown out) I give him the benefit of the doubt.  He is usually the 3^rd or 4^th little boy to be wearing them (thank you to my hand-me-down sister and sister in laws), so he gets a free pass on pants. But when it comes to shoes, most little boys don’t make it to the “hand-me-down” stage. So Landen gets new shoes.  I went to help him tie his shoes yesterday and his SOCK was sticking out of the end of his shoe! This is the 3^RD pair of shoes this year!!! Brayden has always lasted an entire school year with shoes, so this is a whole new concept for me. I thought I could figure a way to make him last until at least the end of possessions month. So I put him in his shoes that had the seams coming apart (that he does not like and proceeded to complain about wearing them to school) but no exposed socks, only to have him come home from school with basically no front attached to the shoe. So, today I bought him, yet another, pair of shoes as to not go to school with exposed toes.

This seems absolutely ridiculous, seeing as we just gave away almost 100 pairs of shoes to different places this month, but there was nothing in this boy’s size.  I felt like a majorly cheated, but I did it anyway.  

The need for shoes...

The cheat!

I also have been avoiding Target like the plague, because it is seriously so difficult for me to go in that store without buying something (they just have such cute stuff and reasonable prices). But I managed to leave with only chocolate (which is consumable, and that is legal) and the shoes. 

Fail: My children are afraid I am going to give away everything they own.  We were cleaning the girl’s room today.  All toys went in baskets to be sorted (because they have not been purged yet) and all clothes went into a giant tub to be sorted and either put away or donated.  Addi and Eleni both started crying. “We love our toys. I love that shirt. I love the skirt. Please don’t give all our stuff away.” I’m not really giving it all away, just sorting and purging some stuff. The girls have way more toys than fit in their room. But I am afraid I am creating hoarders because they are afraid I will give everything away. I should probably work on my approach. :)

All the toys from the girls room... I have no idea how they all fit in that tiny space?

Speaking of hoarders… I found this pile of beauties stashed behind/under/and in the bottom drawer of the dresser in the closet of the girl’s room. For anyone who doesn’t believe we gave up electronics for an entire month… here are the colored pictures to prove it… about a million and one of them (and I have pitched many before I found this lovely stash). Ahh…. Memories of media month…

Sooooo many color sheets!!!

Thanks for stopping by!