“There’s a season for everything and a time for every matter under the heavens:”
Ecclesiastes 3:1 CEB
Spring is springing! Warmer weather, more sunshine, fresh air and…spring cleaning. Awwww man, do we have to? Wellllll, no but we can learn and begin a lot from a good purge.
What were we thinking?
They say the first step is admitting you have a…space that needs to be purged, so let’s go! If I’m in the kitchen or bathroom, that means opening all of the cabinets and drawers. If I’m in my bedroom that means taking a good hard look in my closet, dressers and storage totes. It’s amazing what we can accumulate over the course of a year or even months. When we take a long, hard look at the random ingredients from Pinterest-inspired recipes that we bought on a whim, clothes and shoes from retail therapy and other random items we just “had to have” in the moment, we begin to gain perspective and goals. We move forward with strategy.
Keep, toss, give away.
Once we have an idea of what we’re working with, we decide what we need for our next season. Some things are great, a pair of jeans with the perfect fit, a new spice that we’ve added to our rotation, a new piece of home furnishing that sets the room off just right. Other things no longer serve us, we’ve outgrown them, they don’t flow with our decor or they just didn’t “give what they were supposed to have gave”. Some things still have value or beauty, they just aren’t for us; those go to the give away, donation, or Poshmark pile. Others are just no good for anyone, worn, torn, expired, spoiled, it’s time for them to go to the nearest dumpster or curb. You know those items that we look at and say, what was I thinking?
Let’s see what happens next…
When we look around at what remains after we’ve sorted, kept, given away and tossed, we get a feel for what we’re preparing for in the next season. Winter clothes are stored, new space in closets and cabinets are ready and available for what’s next. Maybe we rethought our spending/shopping habits. Maybe we were able to bless someone with something we’ve outgrown or never really used. Maybe we rediscovered something buried in the back of our closet that we forgot we ever had. Whatever the case, we’ve put ourselves in position to bless someone and put ourselves in position to receive what’s for us in the next season. We’ve also taken time to release the things that are no longer a fit and were taking up valuable space, time and energy.
Purging isn’t the most fun or glamorous thing but when we put it off, we can find ourselves in chaos. Our spaces can become full of habits, people, and goals that no longer fit who we grew to become in the previous season. Taking a moment to do the work of taking personal inventory, keeps us glowing and growing in and on purpose.
I mean, it’s never just about cleaning closets and cabinets…is it?
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