Thanksgiving: Provision

I never realized how emotionally attached I was to things like jackets and shoes until I began giving them away.

The diligent work at clearing out the stuff in our closet{s} since my epiphany has been just as hard as clearing out the junk in my heart that's tangled up with the stuff that's piled in our closets.

In addressing the root of this stuff problem -- my lack of trust that God will provide -- I've felt so exposed.

But in my weakness, I've seen His strength.

And in my obedience of letting go of the abundance by trusting He will meet whatever need we might have in the future, I've heard His voice.

Clear as day.

Streaming through the radio.

Through the wise council of a man whose name I'll probably never figure out.

Don't just count your everyday blessings, he'd said. Count the ways God has provided for you in the small ways we often call luck.

Look for God's provision.

****

On the first day of my purging mission while cleaning out a small keepsake box in our bedroom, I found a handwritten card from John's parents, given to me only a few months after his mom and dad met me for first time.

"We've been praying for you since before John was born," it said. "Always remember God is faithful."

I tossed most of the contents as part of my organizing and purging mission, but I couldn't let that card go.

I tucked the note in between a few favorite books, hidden in the safe confines of my nightstand.

****

I always thank Him for the obvious.

Food, clean water, house, health -- all the things that make up a really good prayer of Thanksgiving, all the things I know I'm blessed to have.

But I knew in order to really get this trust thing going, I needed to see His provision in other ways.

So I went looking.

I saw His provision that very day when Stephanie from Adventures in Babywearing emailed me saying I'd won her giveaway to Tiny Prints for my choice of Christmas cards.

I recognized it when I escaped to the coffee shop the very next day to finish some work without the screeches of children in my ear when the barista asked {as I waited in a line seven people deep} if anyone wanted a free drink. And it was the very drink I was planning to order.

And I recognized it the form of an invitation to write about things I know in exchange for actual payment. {A writer's dream come true!}

All of this within the same week.

All of this when I started looking.

****

I was reading in Joshua when I came across an old story I'd read before but never really heard.

"Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. And Joshua said to them, "Pass on before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, 'What do those stones mean to you?' then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever." Joshua 4: 4-7

****

Just how many, I wondered last night, provisions God has made in my life -- the small, the medium, the large -- that I've not recognized or remembered.

****

G. and I have been searching for the perfect rocks.

I wanted to recreate the Joshua scene in a new way within our home by starting a new Thanksgiving tradition where we write a few things for which we're thankful on each rock, then carry those rocks around with us for an entire year as a remembrance of our blessings, of His perfect provisions.

We haven't found many that could hold more than a few words.

Perhaps we'll scrap the rock idea, I told him this morning. Maybe we'll use pieces of paper instead.

My mind raced immediately to the note from John's parents I'd tucked away last week.

I lingered on the thought.

A 22-year-in-the-making prayer, answered in the most unlikely of ways, with the most unlikely, imperfect person -- me.

But documented on a little note in my nightstand so that I might remember His provision.

My small stone of remembrance at the foot of the river, passed down from a generation that saw His provision and knew the value of keeping it fresh in my mind so that I might know Him more, trust Him more.

Bigger Picture Moments: The stuff in my closet

Welcome to Bigger Picture Moments, a weekly writing meme intended to foster creativity and help busy moms actively seek every-day moments that show us a glimpse of the bigger picture.

Amid fast-paced lives, sometimes we lose sight of the grander scheme; won't you join us in consciously trying to embrace and remember these moments - however small or large?

It looked like Noah's Ark threw up animals two by two all across the living room floor and down the hallway.

I resigned myself to picking them up for the third time, grateful that they would actually find rest there now that the boys were asleep.

I began filing away the books. And then I moved onto the laundry. And then the dishes and shoes and coats.

As I collapsed on the couch, another hour had slipped through my fingers while I was maintaing all of this stuff.

It's stealing my energy.

This stuff.

It's stealing my time.

I don't know about you, but servicing the house -- the every day sorting, cleaning and organizing of toys, clothes, shoes, books, socks, pans, papers -- is cutting into more and more of my time.

And some of it, admittedly, is necessary.

Like laundry.

We need clothes.

But does Baby E. need 10 pairs of overalls in size 18 months, half of which don't actually fit over his cloth-diapered butt?

Why am I putting energy and thought into maintaining -- cleaning, sorting and housing -- all of those overalls?

And, surely, you know, it's not just overalls, right?

I exhaled and sunk further into my thoughts about all.of.this.stuff, unable to write or carry on with my evening plans.

****
The next morning I was blessed to happen upon a post at Sorta Crunchy in which Megan asked her readers to get real.

She asked us to trust her with our deep holiday anxieties.

So I confessed.

I said I was feeling a bit like Scrooge this year at just the thought of the presents that likely will make their way through our door.

Already overwhelmed by the amount of things we have, I couldn't imagine the thought of more stuff without gettin a little anxious.

That's not like me.

I love giving presents.

I love putting thought and effort and time into picking out or making a gift someone will enjoy.

But I feel like we're bursting at the seems.

I don't want to be the grinch.

I don't want to be the one who asks our family to NOT give gifts when so many of our family members find the same joy I do in giving. After all, giving is a love language, and I don't want to stiffle any expressions of love.

But how do I get out from under these mounds of things?

Poor Megan. All this in her comments section.

Apparently my house wasn't the only thing bursting at the seams.

****
Do you know Jan Silvious?

Our Wednesday morning class had the pleasure of asking her some burning questions about mentoring relationships or just life in general yesterday morning.

I unloaded all of thse thoughts I'd been pondering about stuff right there.

And, simply, she gave me some perspective:

Don't stymie love languages and put restrictions on gifts -- it's part of the joy of our season of celebration.

But, she said, for every thing that comes in, something goes out.

Including toys.

Even if the boys still play with and enjoy those toys.

And clothes.

Even if I think I might wear that black sweater sometime this year, though I haven't worn it in about four years.

But, I stammered, aren't I being a good steward of our resources by saving all of this stuff so that if we need it in the future we don't have to buy it, thus saving us money that we could send to missionaries in Africa?

No, she'd said. You're being a good steward by giving those things to people who need them NOW.
***
I packed at least three boxes worth of stuff last night after G. and I had a conversation about Christmas and giving and sharing.

"So you know, bud," I'd said. "Our family loves us, and they like to show us how much they love us through giving us gifts we'll like."

"Like toys?" he asked.

"Like toys," I said. "But you know, we have a lot of toys, don't we?"

"Yes," he agreed.

"Wouldn't it be nice if we gave some of our toys to kids who would like to play with them when we get new toys?" I ventured.

He pondered it.

"Yes," he finally agreed. "If I get more toys, we should give some away."

I smiled.

"Some kids don't have toys, mom," he said.

I could tell some of our prior conversations had actually found a home in his brain.

"You're right," I said.

"So it'd be good to give some away," he replied. "We can always get new toys."

And with his simple words, the lights came on.

This stuff issue?

This is MY issue, my very own heart problem.

I've been trying to put restrictions on my generous family members when it comes to gift giving because if the stuff doesn't come in the house, I don't have to deal with it.

That's wrong.

I've been trying to put responsibility on shoulders it doesn't belong.

Their love language of giving is something to be embraced.

I need to get a hold of my own issue with stuff and why I keep it and why I let it sit in boxes in the basement.

I need to break free from this depression-era mentality of holding onto so many things because God is meeting our needs.

In fact, He not only provides the needs, He also provides the wants.

So, no, the issue isn't that others are being too generous {don't you love how I can turn my own heart issue around like that?}; it's that there's some sort of fear in my heart that we won't have what we need.

And I need to get a handle on that.

****
I thought a box of Matchbox cars weighed only a pound or two.

I was wrong.

It weighs tenfold.

It's not motherhood that's imprisioning me.

It's the matchbox cars.

The dozen overalls stacked in E.'s closet cubby.

The handfuls of magnets I find strewn across the wooden floors.

And it's my job, in this realization, to squash my heart issue here -- to make giving and recieving and donating all constant practices so that for me and for my boys a box of Matchbox cars weighs what it should -- a pound or two -- instead of the ton it's come to feel like on my shoulders.

Read more Bigger Picture Moments or link your own at Sarah's this week.