Decluttering my life

God recently exposed an area of my life that needs some work. I am a recovering pack rat and with the help of my loving husband I am decluttering my life. I was praying the other day that God would show me how to be a good mother and wife. I have been very frustrated about having all of these wonderful desires in my heart, and with great enthusiasm exclaiming before I before I go to bed "tomorrow is the day I change my life, I achieve all my hope and dreams, I accomplish the impossible", well maybe not quite. But I always have great aspirations for tomorrow only to lay my head on my pillow at night and say "what did I do today?" My heart has been so grieved as I watch my little girl's life passing by so quickly and fear I will lay my head on a pillow 20 years from now and sigh "Oh, all the things I wanted to teach her, wanted to show her, wanted to impart to her, all the ways I wanted to show my husband that I loved him, respected him, or was just thinking about him, all the people I wanted to reach out to, friends I wanted to connect with, and family that needed my love. But, what did I do today?" I start the day with a list of things to do, but I find myself sinking under it's heavy weight, powerless to accomplish the task at hand. I know my emotions are partly if not wholly to blame for my condition. I do the things that make me feel good at the time, and pay the price at the end of the day with disappointment and regret. Denny Kenaston in his message "The Three Mysterious influences in the Home", here, talks about how children absorb their environment. And how it is our responsibility as parents to create an environment that will foster children with heart towards God and their parents. We know that God is a God of order. Everything he created has purpose and proper place. Well I can't say the same for my home. And when your environment is cluttered so is your life. I'm not sure which one come first, a cluttered mind or a cluttered home, but they definitely lend themselves to each other, like a vicious cycle. Clutter drains your energy and blocks a healthy flow of progress. WELL I'VE HAD ENOUGH!!!!! I'm breaking this cycle and decluttering my home. I want to teach my daughter how to care for the things God has entrusted her with. And she will only learn from watching how mommy cares for her home, herself, and her belongings. I'm glad God has been gracious and showed this to me before months and years were wasted.
I will keep you updated with my progress. I know this is an attitude change for me, and it won't come by my simply throwing away some stuff. Pray that God would help me.
I know he cares.

Below is an article I found on how clutter affect your life.


Here are 10 ways excessive clutter can affect you and your life:


1. Family

Clutter causes irritability, resentment and stress that leads to temper tantrums, outbursts, and overall disharmony (especially, if people are having to deal with "other people's clutter". You may start to feel like you aren't a good parent or aren't a good example for your kids
Excessive clutter can cause depression, acting out, bad behavior in children due to their inability to focus caused by the clutter.

2. Relationships

Causes conflicts often due to chronic lateness
Can keep you from socializing because you don't have the energy or can't find clothes to go out. Keeps you from getting close to people because you don't entertain or want to have people visit you in your home

3. Loss of Self-Esteem

Causes you to feel like you aren't capable or are missing some basic skill that everyone else "seems" to have so you feel bad about yourself - the truth is you are not alone, many people have issues dealing with clutter

4. Emotionally

Excessive clutter often cause feelings of shame, guilt, anger and embarrassment that holds you back.
Clutter drains your energy - and you don't realize it till it's gone. Every item in your home has an energy to it. When items go a long time unused, unloved and uncared for, they become stuck, stagnant energy that actually physically drains you of your energy.

5. Physical Health & Stress

The stress caused by clutter is enormous. Every time you can't find something, or an argument flares up with a loved one, or you can't relax because you worry about all the things you need to do, but can't till you get the clutter cleared, your stress levels increase. Stress in turn, lowers your immunity and resistance and so you may have frequent, persistent colds.
Clutter can make it more difficult to eat healthy, cause headaches, fatigue, sinus problems and allergies and more.

6. Mental Health

Clutter decreases your ability to enjoy life. It causes stress, confusion, inability to focus, and often leads to depression. Sometimes clutter is initially caused by depression, but clutter also makes it nearly impossible to recover from depression. In my experience, once people start releasing their clutter, their energy comes back and the depression gets better, sometimes it goes away for good. Some people are extremely sensitive to their environments and just never realized what a difference it could make.
Even in people who don't have ADD, clutter causes ADD like symptoms.

7. Safety & Hygiene

In extreme clutter, people have a hard time walking without tripping or bumping into things. Often there are things hidden in the clutter that are very unsafe for children. I've seen some cases where a young child is pretty much confined to a playpen all the time because it just isn't safe to be out of the playpen.
Inability to clean cluttered areas can lead to extreme dust and even mold and mildew that exacerbates and even causes health problems in yourself and your children

8. Time

Simply having too much stuff eats up your time like crazy. Every thing you own requires some amount of care and organization. If you have too much stuff, it's much more difficult, time consuming, and expensive to get organized.
Having too much stuff often leads to procrastination and lateness which wastes your and other people's time and causes a whole host of other problems.
Not being able to find things is a huge time cost of clutter. For some people it wastes several hours every day.

9. Your Future

Holding on to clutter often grounds you in the past at the cost of your present life and your future.
Clutter distracts you from being able to think about your goals, projects, hobbies and get things done

10. Financial

Things have to have homes. Whether the home you provide for things is an extra room, a piece of furniture, or a container, you continue to pay for things long after you initially acquire them. Clutter directly costs money in the following ways:
Late fees for bills paid late
Credit card debt - often for unused stuff
Duplicates purchased because you can't find things
Some people move to larger home to accommodate the stuff
Renting storage facilities
Clutter affects people's careers. Studies have shown that people with cluttered desks and offices are less likely to be promoted. This of course affects how much money you can make.

Maybe you too can identify. Search your heart. If not pray for the rest of us.
Deborah