Stop the Plague of Stuff

I love the holiday season, but I'm frustrated. With all the giving in the air, we've suddenly become inundated with good will and are drowning in a sea of books, videos, shoes, and clothes in so many sizes we could outfit a store. But we still need some things, like a size 14 pair of snow pants. Instead we have sizes 3-6 months, 12 months, 3Ts, and 7s which are useless and taking up space.

All of this is not good will's fault. These things were already accumulating despite careful intake because I was trying to be a good steward and not squander what God had given to us. But there is a fine line between good stewardship and hoarding.

Several years ago I ran clothing giveaways in our church that had little storage room. It was constantly so saturated with donations, mounds of clothing bags fell out of closets and overflowed into other work areas. It looked horrible and made a bad impression on church members and the community. People complained, but the ministry head was afraid if we limited the donors, they would stop donating completely and we would no longer have anything to give.

But it became simple and clear to me after finally bringing it under control. God wanted us to be good stewards and we weren't if we accepted more than we had room to store--we had an abundance of women's clothes, few children's and men's, and keeping the abundance disallowed us to obtain the needed items. I got bold and asked for only certain types of clothes that were hard to secure. We actually got them, which made us better able to serve the community.

After tripping through my home in frustration tonight, I remembered this, realizing our needs are being drowned by the abundant extras.

We must stop the plague of stuff, and stop being afraid to let go of something we don't need now but might later and we worry we won't be able to t replace it. And we need to do it by trusting God to supply the need when it comes. And I know he does because He incredibly restored three lost wardrobes for ND when she was an infant. (BTW, happy birthday CJ, and ND!)

So, over the next ten days I'll be donating all kinds of excess stuff. This will actually make way for--gasp!--bunk beds in the girls room which they desperately need. Wowwee! It's Christmastime indeed. :)

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