When our children were little, those weeks after Christmas were always a time for black garbage bags and donations, to make room for the gifts of another year. It was embarrassing to realize the excess. Every year was a rotation of goods, in and out, wrap and unwrap and bag it all up, send it away. We set limits and tried to be practical, but the spirit of the season is giving, and the spirit of our household was to minimize the things we were given, to get rid of extras and keep the clutter down. When we moved this summer, I saw how we had fallen off that wagon. Somewhere between our children entering their teen years and moving out into homes and apartments of their own, we had stopped sorting through closets. Our home had become a storage facility.
It had been our plan for a few years to sell our home and make a change, but we didn’t think we’d be moving to a new town, with new neighbors and stories and a history unknown to us. We hadn’t planned to move to this particular house, but it became our best option when other plans fell through, and we are enjoying it. We are making a home here for now and learning all the new rhythms that go with it.
Once we knew we were moving, the purge began. The black bags became fixtures in our master bathroom, where we sorted and stored the donation items until they warranted another trip to Goodwill. All of our belongings were categorized and ruthlessly judged based on their purpose in our particular lives—not just whether they were useful, but were they useful to us? Anything with a strong emotional connection, we kept. Anything used on at least a monthly basis was saved. But the broken things that we set aside to mend “someday”; the unused, unworn, unloved things; and the piles of good intentions and emergency backups were sorted into groups: Garbage or Give Away (which included a yard sale and is basically like giving things away, once you factor in all the labor involved).
It was a ton of work, but I can’t imagine how much more of a burden it would have been if we had tried to take everything with us. It felt good to only bring the things we knew we wanted in this next phase of our life, as empty nesters in a new home and new town. Part of moving is always a fresh start.
Part of it is hard, though. Fresh starts always include your old self, too, and Tim and I are really wondering about the work God is doing in us. Who are we now? And what do we want from life as it is now? We are free in so many ways, but we are tethered too. We could live anywhere, but our people—most of our children and grandchildren and the people we have spent nearly thirty years in fellowship with at our church—are all more than an hour away. We want to pour our time and energy into the work God has for us, but it feels like we’ve set up camp at the crossroads of whatever comes next, or like we are hovering, waiting for directions to land.
All in all, this feels like a time of waiting, which is appropriate to the season. The faithfulness required of us while we wait is the steady work of making room for Christ to form us and our desires. This move has caused us to not only evaluate our physical belongings—the stuff we store in closets and tote boxes in the attic—but also our real belonging in the kingdom of God.
As we evaluate this season of our lives and wait for our next step, I am looking at the things in my life that aren’t stored in boxes but still need to be purged. Whatever keeps me from seeking His kingdom first—like brooding over questions of meaning or continually asking God why?—is garbage right now. Scrolling endless feeds of doom is like digging in the trash, trying to salvage something I don’t need to hold on to. Anything that makes flourishing in my physical body difficult is also garbage I need to get rid of. I can still flourish with a few Christmas cookies and my father-in-law’s famous peanut butter fudge, but overall, I need the sleep and exercise and good fuel my body thrives on. It’s all connected. My mind and my body both need to be tended to as part of this process of making room for belonging.
When I was sorting our stuff into categories in preparation for our move, I texted multiple pictures to our kids with questions like Who wants this? and Who does this belong to? Some of them claim faux-trauma at the mysterious disappearance of certain childhood possessions, like a dozen Veggie Tales VHS tapes or the backpack they loved in kindergarten. I wanted to give away as much stuff as I could, but I also needed to cover my bases. I can’t give away something that doesn’t belong to me.
What I want to give away are the gifts of time, peaceful presence, and rest. Those are the categories I’m using for Christmas gifts this year, and they are the keys to belonging in community as well. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to be in two communities, wondering how to invest in each and whether it’s worth my time to form attachments here. I want to give away the gift of being a peaceful presence to those around me, and that won’t happen if I’m harboring anxieties about what may come next, or if I’m guarded about forming new relationships. And the gift of rest this Christmas, of keeping things slow and simple, can make room for Jesus to be a child to me again—tender, vulnerable, and humble. If I am rested, I am more able to give others rest. If I am at peace, I can invite others to be at peace. All these things take time.
It feels good to have our belongings pared down. We still have excess, and managing our “stuff” is a problem of our culture that we will always contend with, but there is satisfaction in evaluating our belongings and making room for new possibilities. The weight of physical clutter does affect us spiritually, I believe. So by clearing clutter, we make room in our homes, our heads, and our hearts.
Christmas will feel different this year, which would have been true even if we hadn’t moved. We are just at that stage of life where our traditions are changing as our family expands. It’s as though there is a set weight we can hold, and growth in one area requires paring down in another—and none of that is bad. But this Christmas, the idea of making room for Christ is maybe more visceral than it’s ever been to me, and I am yearning for an eager anticipation to replace the existential holding pattern this year has proven to be. Christ is coming to a world that desperately needs some black trash bags and a system to reevaluate its belongings, and I am first in line to have my load lightened. May Christ empty me of any and every thing that is garbage or meant to be given away, and fill me with Himself—my truest home and greatest place of belonging.
The featured image, “Northfield Wreath,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and used with her kind permission for Cultivating.
Tresta Payne learned to appreciate the beauty of God from the landscape of the Pacific Northwest, where she lives with her husband and four children. She builds her own MFA in creative writing through homeschooling her children and tutoring others, finding every excuse to learn and read and grow. After twenty years of homeschooling she is ready for someone to hand her that degree. She enjoys a good, deep discussion with a balance of differing opinions, and works out her own thoughts in writing. Tresta walks a lot on the wild country roads around her home, with her dog and her thoughts and the nearness of God to keep her company.
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