Tag: possessions

traveling light

“Flying is a lot harder than it was before I acquired all these possessions.  The best way to travel, really, is to travel light.” ~Louie from The Trumpet of the Swan

Louie was one wise swan. I can’t think of a better way to word the way that possessions weigh you down. I’ve discovered that traveling light is often harder than it seems. Letting go and lightening the load isn’t difficult if there is no attachment. However, memories and sentiment muddle things for me. I often hold onto to things unnecessarily long. Take my childhood collection of ribbons and trophies as an example. These colorful momentos have been gathering dust in a box in our guest bedroom for over 15 years. When we prepared to list our home for sale several months back I asked myself: Do I look at them? No. Do I display them in my house? No. Do I think about them from time to time? No. Is it hard to throw them away? Yes. Do I have to throw them out? No. Will I miss them if I do? I doubt it. Continue reading “traveling light”

possessions

Bags of too-small kid’s clothing that we had been holding onto “just in case”.

The last few weeks have been a jumble of sorting, selling, giving away and letting go. The number of unnecessary possessions that we have obtained and the amount of time it has taken to sort though them has worn me down.  In many ways, the process has been both annoyingly frustrating and therapeutically freeing.  My heart does not want to own so much, it weighs on you in unseen areas and seems to suck energy out of you just by being there.  The challenge for me however, is not in releasing the unwanted items, but in facing the things that I do want, that I do enjoy.  There is a pull, a silent whisper of security that beckons from the lifeless stuff around me.  Perhaps “possessions” is the most accurate term that could possibly describe our things. The irony is that we can fail to see who owns and who is possessing.  This can be almost impossible to judge until the moment in which you are faced with giving it up.  Continue reading “possessions”

his dream

Cherries, apricots, peaches and apples were an integral part of my childhood.  My family owned a soft fruit orchard on the Columbia River in Washington State.  Summer days were filled with harvesting fruit for customers.  Summer evenings were spent on the river boating.  Waterskiing and knee boarding were our family sport.  A large percentage of my happy adolescent memories can be traced back to our boat.
Therefore, after our mass-selling spree it seemed only natural to consider finding a reasonably priced boat to continue the tradition with my own family.  Late in the summer season we found a great deal on a 10-year-old boat and commenced the happy memory making. 
As fall approached, my husband shared that he was sensing a pull from God to sell our boat.  He didn’t have any logical reasons to hang this decision on, other than a strong prompting in his heart.  We agreed to pray about it and ask God to be clear so we would know how to respond.

Continue reading “his dream”