It's truly gratifying to see how easily family bonding can occur without any planning on my part. It happened to me just a week into the new year. One minute, I was minding my own business upstairs in the kitchen, and the next minute, with snow drifting silently outside, I joined family members in the downstairs laundry room, standing side by side under a 100 watt bulb, squishing our feet in soggy carpet. (The first person to reveal to me the deep significance of carpeting a rental house laundry room will receive one gold star and a free trip to the dump to drop off the carpet).

Though not on my "List Of Fun Things To Do On A Saturday Night", it was certainly a creative way to bring the family together. So, first on the agenda-- clear the laundry room of anything on the carpet. A monumental job (if a dirty oven would have dropped from the sky at that moment, I would have gladly crawled inside and started cleaning). Suddenly, one daughter went to bed, sick. Another had a head-ache, but was drafted anyway. My son, two days from returning to college after the Christmas break, took over.

He spoke to the remaining family. "If we have to move everything, let's get this done fast. I'll hand you the boxes. Take them into the next room and stack them well." Unfortunately, he was talking to me, Queen of the Disorganized Ones. All too soon the family room burgeoned with haphazard piles of boxes, baskets, & bags, like odd,
wind-blown sand formations found in a National Geographic desert scene. Not even the dog could maneuver through the mess. "Hey-- what happened to stacking them well?" My son surveyed our lack of order (Who was this 20 year-old young man? Surely not the one who use to view room cleaning as life without parole).

We moved the metal shelving units, the solid concrete credenza-- also full-- weighing in at about 2 tons wringing wet (I'm sure it's made of wood, but it moves like a block of concrete). We ripped up the soggy carpet, the soggy carpet pad, carried the soggy mess outside (to be dealt with at a later date), wiped up the floor with the last of the clean towels in the house (I know, they all should have been washed, folded, and sitting tidily in a cupboard somewhere, ready for special family times like this), and turned to the room that held the " important stuff" of our lives ("Boys and girls, please find the oxymoron in that last sentence.").

"Mom, you seriously need to get rid of most of this stuff. I've helped too many people move, and have carried all of their junk out of their old house, and then carried all of their junk into their new house. If you find out later that you need something you threw out, I'll buy it for you. (Not a bad deal... and my ticket to getting some new... stuff!). “Look at this--are you ever going to use them?" He gestured to a box of individually
wrapped jars.

"Well, if might need them some day, if I ever decide to take up canning." Not likely to happen in this lifetime.

"What's in here?" He pulled out some brown and orange canisters that were cool in the 70's. He had a point. I lived through that "poly-era", and there is no way that stuff was coming back into my kitchen.

"What about these?" He hefted a plastic bin.

"Those are toys for the grandchildren when they come over," I said proudly.

He sifted through some old puzzles and stuffed animals. "My kids aren't going to want to play with this. If we need to, we'll just go out and buy you some toys. And I doubt that I'll bring my family back here some day, take them all downstairs, gaze fondly at the laundry room shelves and say, ‘Here are our heirlooms! Here are all the things we couldn't live without, but they must remain down here, forever shrouded in cardboard?’"

"Here's a box for you." I handed him one with his name on it.

He peeked inside. "When am I going to need these old report cards? What about this birthday card-- it doesn't even say who it's from!"

"I'm absolved," I told him. "My job was simply to save those things for you, until you became of age. I'm passing the torch.. If you decide to throw them out, let the guilt be upon your shoulders." I was secretly glad to have one box gone... only 3, 792 remained.

He rummaged again. "That's my wedding box-- you're not throwing that out!" I put my soggy foot down on that one. "Those are letters and cards your Dad wrote to me before we were married!" Also included-- a 1977 issue of a bridal magazine, plus the remainder of those little rolled papers that you hand to all the guests as they file in.

My daughter stuck up for me. "She has to save some things to hold on to good memories." This was the child who collected collections-- collections of comics, plastic toys, etc. One day in her presence, I had made a desperate attempt to gain order over my clutter, and had cleaned out a "junk box". She fearlessly rescued a wad of red baby hair
(don't know which baby it was since all four children are red-heads) and a 3-inch piece of pew bow ribbon from our wedding. "You've got to keep these, Mom. You'll miss them if you throw them out." Guilt loomed-- back it went into the junk box.

"Look at all these pictures, Mom. These you can keep. All you need to do is put them in new photo albums." (The ravages of kids, a flood, and many, many moves had almost destroyed our visual heritage.)

Catching the vision, I said, "Then I can display them in the living room like Grandma does!" My mother has her pictures organized in labeled albums by years, with historical accounts on each page. This might give you a small clue as to the state of the rest of her house. Maybe I was taking on too much.

Time to quit. We stuffed all the boxes back on the shelves for another day, solved The Mystery of the Leaking Washing Machine, and went to bed. I will go back through the boxes. I don't know whether I can get it done all in one 24 hr. period, but I can at least do a little every day. If I have things that are so important, I need to get them out for others to see and enjoy. The rest-- well, do I really need them? Maybe it's time for a garage sale or a trip to Goodwill, and give some other woman the privilege of storing it for me!

Time for an internal look. What kind of things need to be cleaned out of our lives this year? Maybe a box of "Me"-- me always needing to be right, be first, or be noticed. Maybe a bin full of griping, sour attitudes, or an ungrateful heart? How about a sack of self-pity, through which we strive to gain attention? Do we really want everyone traipsing downstairs to see all of this hidden stuff? News flash: people-- especially family and friends-- already see many of our "hidden treasures" every day. Don't wait for someone to come along and tell you what's ugly and worthless. Let the piercing light of God's Word show you what needs to go, and what you can bring home to replace it (Phil 4:8,9; Col. 1:10-12). The best part is... you get new stuff that you can use right away! Being right is OK once in a while, but why hog all of the glory for yourself? Let someone else have the joy of being right (Prov. 10:12, Eph. 4:2). Cancel your pity-party and have coffee (or a healthier beverage) with someone else who needs some special attention (Gal. 6:2). Talk about turning trash into spiritual treasure—you honor Christ, you bless others, and you receive joy in return.

Where do we start-- your place or mine?

First appeared in Frontline magazine