stuff and things

Christmas left me wanting this year. It wasn't that I didn't get eat enough or listen to enough music, because I really did! It was that I didn't get to see the annual Christmas program in my hometown. I didn't get to brave the Kaufman Center with my tribe to witness Tuba Christmas. Crown Center was practically a ghost town the week of Christmas and Santa was all booked up for days ahead of our visit. So when it came time to put away the movies and delete all my Christmas playlists, I wasn't ready. Usually by December 31st, I've had my fill. Some years I'm stripping the tree on the 26th. But this year it came and went, and I just couldn't let it go. I mean, I knew I had to, because cold weather was coming and the lights had to come down, but I was trying to squeeze just a little more cheer out of the season to make up for what was lost.

When I finally started taking things down, I took everything down. All my photos, all the wall hangings, all the perfectly placed things on the mantle and the hall tree. Everything. Once the clutter started to go away, I was excited about having some wide open spaces on the walls. I left a few large pieces up because they speak life, but everything else came down. 

It felt so much better. Cleaner. Less hustle, more rest.  

And then I noticed this. In the midst of my clutter purge, my dreamy husband took the boys to an arcade where they spent mountains of money and came home with everything in the ticket counter. One of the items they "won" was this velcro dartboard. I'm not gonna lie, it is cool. I loved these things when I was a kid, and if I'm not mistaken, it was me that suggested that Clinton hang it here because there was already a nail. In this blank space. In the living room. Between the only windows. This focal point in the room. So he could practice throwing velcro darts. In the living room.

I didn't even realize that this toy was still hanging in the place where I removed a beautiful mirror in order to get the clutter out. It's been there for a month, undisturbed and unnoticed. And that's how clutter happens. It goes up and becomes a part of the wall or shelf or closet. Even though it's a silly toy, it hangs in a place of honor because no one is paying attention. 

And that's how sin takes root in our lives. Undisturbed and unnoticed. 

Notice, darling. Take it down. Pull it out by the roots. Confess it to someone and ask Jesus for forgiveness, lest it destroy your life.

"Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin, when it has run its course, brings forth death." James 1:15

lvb