Expired Junk

Clutter creates chaos. I'm not sure how or why this happens, but it does. More often than I care to admit. 

Standing in the kitchen, with a half hour before I needed to leave for an appointment, I told myself I had just enough time. I could empty and reorganize one shelf of a very deep cabinet. Hidden away in the back, amongst the clutter, I found this:

In case you can't read the Best By date, it is Sep. 02, 2009. Do you have any idea how many jars of peanut butter I have purchased in the last 4-5 years?  Plenty.  I've even run out of peanut butter, or so I thought. (To be fair,this is creamy peanut butter and it most likely was shoved to the back by my peanut butter eaters who prefer crunchy.)

I found many interesting items in that cabinet: A package of seaweed sent from Korea by my son. He's been back in the states for 2 years. Two boxes of candy canes I planned to use at Christmas. They were saved from the previous year. Six empty bags of Starbucks coffee. Did you know if you take an empty bag to the store you can get a free cup of coffee? Just a regular coffee, nothing fancy. Expired hot chocolate, coffee filters that don't look useable, and a nearly empty roll of Reynolds plastic wrap that is no longer sold-nostalgia? I can't remember why it was saved. I ran across 4 expired packages of baking chocolate, one was white. Apparently I had baking plans, but never got around to them. I managed to empty the shelf in the allotted time and only put back what I felt was necessary and trashed the rest.

When clutter takes over drawers, closets, countertops, and cupboards, is it any wonder that items become lost or disappear? I doubt I'm the only one who has lost an important paper, misplaced a valuable tool, or simply couldn't find what I needed because of unnecessary clutter. In the busyness of life, rather than deal with stuff that is accumulating, it seems easier to shove it in a drawer and decide what to do with it at a later date.  The problem is, later isn't any more convenient. As the clutter takes over, it steals my time. I waste hours sifting through junk to locate an important item. The time it would have initially taken to either find a proper home for stuff or discard it is a pittance to the time lost rummaging through it in search of other things.

What about mental and spiritual clutter? Issues and decisions come up yet get shoved to the back of my mind or heart because I don't want to deal with them now. What becomes of this junk? Does that little agitation grow every time I throw it to the back of my mind's closet? When is a convenient time to deal with that irritation or to make that decision? When it is fresh, right in front of me or when it has been allowed to clutter and cloud my thoughts for days and weeks at a time? Do I forgive right away, or stuff that in my mental "to do" folder? If I wait until I am offended again, I can add that to the existing folder.  Then when the folder is big and fat, it is no longer filled with just items needing forgiveness, but now contains deep roots of bitterness.  I glance at it and realize I have a huge cluttered mess to tackle.  It reminds me a lot of that overstuffed closet. It would have been so much easier if I had dealt with these things right away.

When I allow clutter to build up, whether clutter of the heart, mind, or home, it can lead to chaos.  It causes me to lose valuable time and resources. That jar of peanut butter was a perfectly good, food item that was wasted because it became lost in the back of a shelf, amidst the junk. How often have I missed an opportunity to grow or to be used by God, because I was loaded down by a bunch of junk that kept me from seeing what was truly important?

What about you? I'd love to hear how you have dealt with clutter: your successes and failures.

Truthfully,

Joanne

"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us," (Heb. 12:1)