Have you ever looked around your house, in your closets, or in your child's room, and then realized that you truly have way too many things? Well, I have... a lot lately. I've been doing this Bible study by Jen Hatmaker on The 7 Experiment: Staging your own mutiny against excess and it has really been eye-opening and a bit challenging. It discusses 7 different critical areas of our lives: Food, Clothes, Possessions, Media, Waste, Spending and Stress.
This study asked me to go through some crazy fasts from these seven areas... for example, on clothing week, I picked out only a handful of clothing items to wear for a whole week. And what did I learn? That it doesn't really matter what we wear. That people don't necessarily notice everything that you wear everyday. That the desire to want new and more clothes is actually this enormous, self-seeking habit that has been instilled in me since I was little. I found that it is so easy to be tricked into the thinking that "what I wear says something more important about me than who I actually am."
During the possessions week, I was challenged to (and actually enjoyed!) going through all the closets and drawers in our home and asking myself if this was something that I really needed. Or, was I simply holding onto this item that I hadn't used or worn in YEARS because of this wonderful memory, or because I might use it one day? The truth is, with a lot of that stuff, someone else could actually have a real need for it now or benefit from it way more than me. Jesus said that our treasures would steer our hearts. And these treasures have serious power. The author talked about how the more openhanded she became with her stuff, the less power they had over her. "We don't think our way into a new life; we live our way into a new kind of thinking."
So we made piles and piles of stuff out in our garage, together with donations from my parents and siblings, and spent an entire day sorting and pricing for a big garage sale at our home.
Andrew and I were so excited to have come to the decision that we were going to donate all of the money that we made from our garage sale to some people who were really in need. We chose to donate to the
Abba Fund, an organization who assists Christian families seeking to adopt orphans.
Did you know that there are over 153 million orphans in the world? And that although 33% of Americans consider adoption, 79% are concerned with the high cost, and when it comes down to it, less than 2% adopt? That morning I prayed that God would bring in a ton of people to buy our stuff, so we could raise as much as we could to help a Christian family adopt their waiting child.
I think the garage sale was a huge success. We sold e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Later that afternoon Andrew and I sent our donation to the Abba fund and we couldn't be happier. Even Sammy was happy to help some little children who didn't have any mommies or daddies.
Matthew 6:21 "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
