December 30.  I find myself at the end of yet another difficult year. I should be excited to see this one end and to see another begin. However, I feel anxious. I feel worried. I simply do not want another year like the last.

So I go to my closet. I’ve decided it’s a good place to start clearing out some of the stuff that needs to move past my house and on down the road, even if down the road is only to the little Goodwill trailer located in the local grocery store parking lot.  In the back of my closet I have placed a clothes basket, and in that clothes basket, live the clothes I have deemed now unworthy of my wardrobe. When the basket gets full, most often full and overflowing, I gather everything up in a large bag, load it in my car, and take the short trip down the street to discard it.

As I go through the clothes, I start questioning my choices. I look at a shirt and ask myself why I took it out of circulation. I tell myself I’m sure I could wear it a couple more times. I pick up something else and wonder, “What was I thinking? Do I really want to get rid of this?”

Let me pause for a moment to confess I have way too many clothes.   I’m embarrassed to admit, I probably have enough clothes for at least two, but probably three of me. When my daughter is looking for something to wear she raids my closet, which she sarcastically refers to as “the department store upstairs”.

As I contemplate what should stay and what should go, I must remember the goal is to clear out this year to make room for a better, happier, next year. The lesson is received loud and clear when I pick up a pair of jeans. These were my FAVORITE jeans. They have been washed and worn, and washed and worn, so much the fabric has grown paper-thin. I kept wearing them until a hole broke through the knee and they were truly not suitable to be seen in public. I know I won’t wear them anymore, but I wonder why it’s so difficult to put them in the bag. It’s almost like losing a best friend. I have become so comfortable with the old, I’m having trouble making room for the new.

But now I stop questioning and rethinking every decision made and start trusting my judgement that the things placed in the basket, things I have removed from my life, were intentional and placed there for a reason.   I choose not to go back, pick up, or revisit the things in which I have discarded.  I choose not to rethink my decisions over and over again.  I choose to move beyond.  I pack up the old clothes, move them out of my closet, out of my home, and on down the road.

Isaiah 43:18 says, Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.

We need to get rid of last year’s clutter, so we have room for this year’s joy.

Wishing you joy and peace,

Lorrie

Hebrews 12:1-2 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”