Repost of how "Get Your House in Order" Started

"I will delight to do your will, O my God, and your law is within my heart."
Psalm 40:8

A very Happy New Year to you! I am looking so forward to another year to walk with the Lord and see what all He has planned for 2015! In years past, I have been so busy planning and wishing and hoping for a different year, that I failed to really focus on what a new year could mean.

What would my year look like if I started out, fully surrendered? What if my hands, heart, and home are open wide to Him and His plans only? This would mean I let go of any and all control (or the illusion of it that I have thought I held for so long..yikes) of my life in Christ. Please, Lord, take it, I am yours. "I will delight to do your will, O my God, and your law is within my heart." Psalm 40:8

 This is the year. 

 To be disciplined. 

To get my house in order,

 spiritually and physically. 

Over the past few months, I have been helping my parents clean out their attic. They have lived in this house  for over twenty years and have been married fifty-five, so it was a little (alot:)) FULL. They renovated this 1912 house that was in big need of TLC the year before I graduated from college. There's such a sweet story of God's provision connected to this home and it has remained a gathering spot for our family for years. Back to the attic, it's a really cool space, I always thought it would make a great apartment. Yes, there's that much room up there. However, that warrants lots of space to store stuff!!And being a space of it's own, it is very easy to tote things up there and leave them, forget about them and pile more on top. Out of sight, out of mind. Atleast for a while.....

Deal with it later. Put off making a decision now to keep or discard. Continue to hold onto things that are no longer useful because they are still good. House things for other people. Thinking it will be needed someday. If I can't see it, I don't have to deal with it. I will get to that tomorrow.

 I couldn't help but come up with these explanations as I looked at the overwhelming project. Then, as God always does, he allowed me to see a lesson that only I could learn, from being I really wondered some days why I needed to complete this. My parents are not moving. Sure, I want them to have the best of the best, I really just wanted to help them do what seemed impossible to them. They are both still hard workers and high functioning, yet  having to lean in a a little to the aging process. (Doing great, Mom and Dad).

 But then it hit me one day, on my fifteenth trip down the stairs with a box of old files, that this must be what my mind looked, like last year. Gasp. Oh dear. Cluttered. Overflowing to the point of needing total overhaul. Not another one of my issues or anybody elses'  I was trying to fix was gonna fit!! There was no more room. For even good things, because I had allowed myself to become to full of things I could not and was never meant to, control.

And then I remembered my own "clean out process." It started in February 2014, after my big five year mark of being cancer free. Very different from the idealic picture in my mind, but very necessary and perhaps the biggest milestone of my entire forty-two years!  I began to deal with things now rather than later. I began to make decisions instead of putting them off because of fear. I began to let go of things both bad and good. I began being responsible for my own life and not everyone elses'. I began living one day at a time instead of fearing the future or dwelling on the past. I began to face reality and accept life and people as they are. I began taking actions today instead of procrastinating. I began to feel different. I began to feel closer to the Lord because He knew this mind and heart of mine were in desperate need of His clearing, cleansing and compassion. It was with God that these changes were possible.

 I began the process of getting my house in order. 

Here again, as with Christ, I gained way more that I lost.(Matthew 10:39) I am free in Him. Fully surrendered to His plans for my life. Notice I said, I began, thus this process will be played out though out the rest of my life here on earth until I meet my Lord, face to face. The whole inspiration for this post is from a book I found, one day while cleaning out the attic. I have been reading and studying it in the mornings. It is called "the Disciplines of Life" by V. Raymond Edman, 1948, published for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. I have written down half of the book as quotes in my journals..haha! This was one of the treasures that I would have never found, had I not been cleaning out the attic. Ironically, I had this book and about five others in a stack for a yard sale and decided to keep them since they were Dad's. What a blessing this book has been to me!

Join me on this journey this year...let's get our spiritual and physical houses in order with God!May you be closer to Him this year than ever!

Day #1  Discipline to seek the Lord every morning, Start today with Psalm 40

Christmas Eve 2014 after SMBC Service, a family tradition

Happy New Year!
Blessings,
Suzanne

"And he arose and followed him."

Matthew 9:9

Day#356 Looks like my count was off..we have a few more days until #365:)