Blessings: A Giving Thing

Well, the time of year has come where action is required.  Its time to go through the house, room by room, and sort the junk from the treasures, the keeps from the donations, the sellables from the trashables.  Those of you that live with slightly more generous square footage refer to this event as "Spring Cleaning".  

However, we live in a small condo and oh-by-the-way had a baby for the very first time 17 months ago. And this baby was born with enough of his own gear and toys and clothes to fill a modest yacht. Seriously, at some point between the crowning head, & the delivery of the placenta, the storage yacht with the label "Baby Loot" was birthed.  This is the only way I can explain the overwhelming accumulation of all G's stuff. It certainly couldn't have happened gradually over the next super busy, super sleep-deprived, 17 months. Certainly not. Aaron & I work full-time, we barely make it to the grocery store weekly, let alone, baby stores. I can't recall purchasing the mountain of toys now barricading his door, or the stacks beyond stacks of piled-high baby blankets, layettes, onesies, prams, and other adorable tiny person clothes now serving as load-bearing wall reinforcements. We were dangerously approaching Hoarders status.

Sudden thought: Maybe Grandma has something to do with this. 

Anyway, I had forgotten what Garrett's closet looked like.  Aw heck, let's be honest, I forgot what color the carpet was in his room. And the stuff was beginning to spill over into the rest of the house. Now I'm  not talking about the typical scattered toys & supplies from designated play areas and changing stations in the master bedroom & living room, but rather, the stuff residing on the stairs & landings, the stuff resting on the dining room table, the stuff abandoned on our nightstands.  The stuff that no longer FITS in Garrett's room, and has stealthily (don't you LOVE that word?!) seeped out into these new locations, hiding in plain sight.  This stuff was causing his room to burst at the seams & the remainder of our condo to become bloated. So this year, for the Schroeder household, Spring Cleaning happens in February. So I began the daunting task of sorting.  

It went easier and harder than I anticipated.  The task itself was less time consuming than I thought it would be.  The task of saying goodbye to these non-living, material things was much more emotionally difficult than I thought it would be.  After some reflection, I realized It was SO hard to let go, because I cherish all the firsts that occurred with those items. 

Garrett first smiled in this sleeper.  He first grasped that teddy.  He first sat up unsupported on this blanket.  His first steps were in those overalls.  

I naturally wanted to keep every single item in these stacks and piles and mountains, because I could justify a first memory for each.  However, after further reflection (I know, I'm on this introspective kick lately) I found peace with letting these material things go.  I realized these joyful firsts are not tied to the actual tangible items, but rather to the experiences I was blessed to witness & that I am gifted these precious memories forever!  The joy I associate with each item isn't associated with the item really at all, but rather with the blessings! Each and every first, each and every memory, experience, event, is a blessing from God!  And God's blessings are not taken away.  They can not be lost or misplaced, God's blessings to us are ours to keep forever, and to share with others!

It's a correlation to how I long for God in a way.  I long for his tangible presence, but then I am filled with the blessing of experiencing God's presence through the kind acts of others, or beautiful music, or even (especially?) a rainbow and I'm reminded of His many promises. Endless blessings.  And then the tangible just doesn't seem so important. 

So I donated 15 or so full and bulging trash bags of Garrett's precious baby clothes & toys. AND YES, I held it together because it felt SO good to know that another child, whoever he may be, would experience his many firsts with these items. As i drove away from the donation drop, I realized that I could give this unknown family more than toys and clothes.  I could give them a prayer. So I prayed that this family would be showered with the same joy with which Aaron & I were blessed. I prayed as they witnessed these miraculous, precious firsts, that God's promises and blessings would be revealed to this family, and that His presence would fill their home.  

And I joyously smiled all the way back to my more stuff-less, more God-present blessing-filled home.