Minimize to Magnify

The month of December always has the tendency to fly by at wicked speed leaving us feeling frazzled instead of filled like its supposed to. I have become determined not to let this happen, but this year there's one more thing being thrown into the mix. We're moving right after Christmas! Yes, we're a little bit crazy, but to be honest, I'm not at all surprised. We have a tendency to do things this way, and I've also learned to go with the flow and try not to stress too much. You know what? This move will happen even if I stop packing to read books and even if I put down the label maker and we load up the car to go look at Christmas lights.....I can sleep in January!

On my quest to not flip out (because lets face it, that always one step away), I have to constantly remind myself what this move represents. This will be our 7th move in our 9 years of marriage. I've made good friends with my favorite moving buddy: the Jumbo Sharpie marker. This move, however is different. This move is not about bigger and better. Even when we lived in a tiny apartment the move was about sacrifice to get to the bigger and better. But, this move is about simplifying, reprioritizing, and minimalizing.

We lived in downtown Chicago for 6 years, so we're no strangers to small living spaces. I didn't however realize how much I  liked it until we had much more. Not only liked it, but how much we need a smaller living space. This big amazing house that I'm sitting in right now has been great to us these past 2 years. We've been able to open up our house to Bible studies, youth events, and many church gatherings. We have also made dear friends with our neighbors. I will greatly miss the "I haven't showered for 2 days but need a coffee playdate" relationship that we have. I'm so grateful for our time here, but its also provided something unexpected: perspective.

When you have a school room, a playroom, a rec room, and two kids bedrooms that just equals a whole lot of space that is mostly just used to sit a whole lot of stuff that is mostly just not used. And, what do kids do? Make messes. I'm all for it really I am. I love that my kids make airplanes and pretend to fly to Grammy's house, and "Camp out" under the stars that requires every blanket and pillow in the house. Here's the problem: when one area of the house gets to messy to play they just move to the next area. Why wouldn't they? Sometimes I do the same thing. I'd prefer to not look at the stack of laundry so I'll conveniently spend my day on the other end of the house.

Also, big house = big cleaning day. I could clean my condo in Chicago in an afternoon. I'm lucky if I tackle a quarter of this house in an afternoon. The bigger our house the more time and energy we devote to filling it, decorating it, cleaning it, and maintaining it. All of a sudden we don't own our things; they own us. I love it when God  convicts my husband and I of the same thing at the same time. It's great confirmation and makes the decisions that much more easy.

It's not just about the stuff. I haven't mentioned that word that plagues us all, yet we love to love it: Money. We had about 2 weeks to find a place when we moved here and I still believe we made the right decision at the time. However, living here has meant we've been living right at our means. Not above it ,we make sure we're not doing that, but not below it either. Well, living right at your means can only mean one thing. We have very little freedom with our money. This has been a thorn in our side for years quite honestly, but for the first time ever, we're taking drastic steps to gain that freedom back. We thought we've been doing good. We don't have cable, we don't go on extravagant vacations, my husband drives a car he needs to start with a hammer about once a week, and we don't overspend on the extras like going out to eat. Having financial freedom on one income is possible. There was just one more big thing we needed to change and that was our housing.

So, we're downsizing. Considerably. We're very excited about this and I'm praying the new year will bring a new perspective that becomes a new normal for our family.

Our kids will all share a room, which is fine because they're old enough it'll work and young enough to think it's still fun. We all will be giving up things we enjoy. My husband looses the hot tub that he uses every day, we will no longer have a school room, and there is no luxury of keeping the pickle jar for the pinterest project I swear I will get to one day.  My days have been spent purging and organizing and purging again. Craigslist is my best friend and the salvation army has had a severe increase of donations this past month. As I've gone through my house I have to admit I feel foolish for even having all this stuff. We're far from hoarders and yet I'm shocked how many bags of trash I've filled. Not worthy selling or being given away simply just JUNK! We don't want our life full of junk and full of stress to figure out how to pay for the place to keep the junk.

No, we want freedom! Freedom to meet a need when we see it without having to think about money. Freedom to obey God instantly when he calls us to do something. When God says "Jump!" we want to say "How high?"

When or if God says "Adopt", we want to say "Yes"
When or if God says "Go", we want to say "Yes"
When God says "Give", we want to say "Yes"
And, not just "Yes we want to" but "Yes we're ready now!"

So, as I'm going nutty over here preparing for and preserving the glory of the Christmas season and packing and getting rid of things, I need to constantly remind myself it's for a greater cause. We're minimizing our stuff so we can minimize ourselves to Magnify the Creator and giver of all good things. (Which is all we really NEED anyway.)

**Disclaimer: Not everyone needs to do what we're doing. We needed to take drastic steps to make sure our outcome was as drastic as we want. However, I do encourage everyone to take the time to evaluate where you are with stuff. Do you have the freedom you want? What would it take to get there? The lights and glitz of Christmas will be over and boxed up far too soon and with that comes a new year, it can be a new clean start for whatever you need it to be.