"This one thing you lack: Sell all you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me" Mark 10:21
This verse has been bouncing around in my head for about the last month or so, maybe it is because I am in the process of paring down my earthly possession to one suitcase. I feel a bit as if Jesus has spoken these words to me. And what is my choice? It would seem like I obviously chosen to "sell all and follow" but as I pour through my apartment I keep finding things that I would rather like to keep.
The first things I gave away where my instruments. At first I thought that these would be the hardest to give away, but I found them the easiest: I was hardling playing my instruments, they took up a lot of space, and I would be able to find instruments of similar quality in Thailand. Also, the people I gave the instruments to would get much more enjoyment out of them. For example: I gave my acoustic guitar to my churches youth group and in a month it has been played more than I played it in the last year. I found it very easy to rationalize giving away the instruments.
Next I sold some things, like my Wii, and my old laptop, an old record player, and some sunglasses that I never wore. I have more things to try and sell, and I have things that I have been trying to sell that just don't seem to want to move. Well some of these things I would have liked to keep, most of them I have hardly used in the last year or two (or four or five), most of them are also older and obsolete items that I would just as soon be replacing. So these items were not that hard to let go.
Oddly enough the items I am having the hardest time letting go are my books, my clothes, and my "Knick-knacks". The knick-knacks and collectables kind of make sense: they are items that I have collected over the years as momentos, or received as gifts from friends. They are mostly items that have little value to anyone but me. This means I probably cannot sell them or give them away, instead they will be thrown away. These are pictures from previous mission trips and adventures with friends. These are those little ear cleaners from Japan that a friends sent you, or the quirky keychains your friend gave you because she was practicing her engraving and thought you would like them. Seriously, what can you do with these? I have no space to take them with me, no place to store them here, and it seems wrong to toss them in the trash bin. Well the pictures I can digitize, many of the other items I will have to throw out, they have either broken or are of little use to me; and throwing out a trinket does not mean I am throwing out the friendship.
Books are one thing I am finding difficult to pruge, and finding it odd that I am having this difficulty. I have collected quite a few books over the years, most of which are Christian education and training books from taking 6 years of bible college. Many of the books I have not read in their entirety. Many I would like to read. But books are by far the hardest thing to move with: They are heavy and take up a lot of space. I can get digital copies of my books and put them on my iPad, or computer and still have room for thousands more books. Yet I look at my pile of books and think,"Well maybe I can keep those ones. The stack there would not take up much space." But as I go through my library the three books turns into five, then ten, then 20. I have decided that the only thing I can do is catalog all my books and then, as I have time, download electronic versions. But then I remind myself how I cannot lend out eBooks, something I also like doing....augh, I will just have to get rid of all of them and stop freting about it.
I am also finding it oddly difficult to get rid of my clothes. Many of which I hardly wear. A common recommendation is to "get rid of anything that you have not worn in the last 3-4 months" (I would imagine seasonal clothes are the exception to this rule.) One of the dilemmas I am having is that much of my clothes that I am experiencing a life change. For the last year and a bit I worked at a job where I wore a work uniform, so many of the clothes that I would have normally worn stayed in the closet. Just like when I was a retail manager, much of my casual clothes did not get used (I probably could have gotten rid of all but one pair of casual pants and one casual shirt/t-shirt and still had more than enough clothes when I was a manager). But now I am changing jobs again. I am becomeing a teacher (of sorts) in a tropical climate. I will need lightweight, semi-formal clothes for my "work-hours" and casual clothes for non-work hours. I will need durable shirts, pants, and jackets for many of my mission outreach trips. And it will probably not hurt for me to hold onto some winter clothing incase I find myself back in Canada during that season. So now I am sorting my clothes into piles: Worn out, that one was pretty easy, anything that is getting holes in it. Taking with me to Thailand, this is a hard one; I mean how many dress shirts do I take? How many suites? Will I be able to find my size in Thailand? Will I actually wear what I brought? The other two piles: "Give Away" and "Store in Canada" more or less hinge on what I am taking to Thailand, what I decided I am never going to wear again, and of course, how much storage space my family will make available to me.
Other things I still have to get rid of include my kitchen supplies and dishes, some of which I will just return to the friends who gave them to me in the first place. I don't expect to have much difficulty with this part, other than where to take it all. So if any of my local readers are needing cutlery or pots and pans, let me know.
Purging is something that I am finding I should do more often, then maybe I would not be having as much of a dilemma now. But truly there is nothing like trying to figure out how to get you life into a suitcase to help you recognize possessions are truly needed, which are nice to have, and which are just junk to fill your house with clutter. Keep the essentials, throw away the junk, and be very critical about your "nice to haves".