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Decluttering

Writer's picture: Danielle CrawfordDanielle Crawford

I recently began a journey of decluttering.


I came across a podcast on, you guessed it, Mel Robbins, where she talked with a woman, Dana, who has transformed her home and her life by unlocking the secret to decluttering.


She talks about how clutter affects us and how we each have a “clutter threshold,” and how everyone’s tolerance for clutter is different. She explains her process for decluttering in 5 steps and those steps are what I have been looking for for a long time. (tried Marie Kondo and if I had to hold every item in my hand to see how it made me feel I would be here for years trying to declutter this one counter.)


You see, this counter has been the thorn in my side for a long time. It’s where we drop everything off when we come in the door. It’s where mail was piled up and things that I put just out of reach of my toddler resided. There were essential oil bottles with maybe a drop left in them, random knick knacks I didn’t know quite where to put, small pieces of toys that were likely choking hazards, mail, mail, and more mail. This countertop gave me anxiety every time I walked past it, and until learning the process of decluttering through this woman, I never would have tackled it peacefully and happily.


What. A. Gift.


As I was writing in my journal this morning, something beautiful was whispered to me. (I say whispered but please don’t think that I am holier than you because I can actually hear the audible voice of God. When I get a thought that aligns with Jesus’s teaching or that compares something as a metaphor to my life, or is completely profound that I know I couldn’t have just dreamt up, I know it’s the Holy Spirit whispering to me.)


My counter top, my living room toy shelf, my bathroom vanity, and my spare bedroom are not the only things needing decluttering. As I was pouring out confessions of sin onto the pages of my journal, I realized that I was in the process of decluttering again, but this time I was decluttering my heart. I was taking each and every sin that was piled up inside of my soul and bringing it into focus so that I could decide what to do with it. The beautiful part of Dana’s 5 step process is that the first step is trash. Anything that is trash goes straight into the garbage bag without thinking twice and without attaching any emotion to it. Bam, trash, gone. And that’s what I started writing. All of the sins that were easy to confess. Sins that were straight up trash that I wanted OUT of my heart so that only Jesus could inhabit it.


The next layer of sins were not surface level sins and I had to search for them and really reflect on them. These are the items in decluttering that you can decide to donate or find a home for. I found things on that countertop that I feel like I was discovering for the first time! Wait, we had one of those??? Wait, we owned sticky tack?? Well, when it comes to sin I know that every single one of them does not deserve a home in my body, but these were not easy to cast out. Were those really sins? Did I really need to confess those? Did I really have to let go of those? Those were the types of sin I wanted to hold to and I could probably justify to God why I should be allowed to partake…but the fact that Jesus even brought them into my mind while confessing sin told me everything I needed to know.


After clearing out and decluttering my heart, I asked God to search my heart for anything left unspoken, and to wash me with his blood, turning me from crimson red to snowy white. Taking my cluttered countertop heart, and clearing it off completely.


WHAT. A. GIFT.


The fact that we do not have to go into a temple in town, offer a burnt sacrifice, and tell a high priest our sins like the Old Testament believers were required to do, is an absolute gift from God. Jesus came and fulfilled this duty as the ULTIMATE and ONLY sacrifice ever needed to take our sins away. When Jesus died as our lamb, the veil between God and His people (us) was torn so that we no longer had to go through someone else to get to Him. We no longer had to only meet with him in the temple. We no longer had to go through the ritual of casting our sins into an innocent animal and then killing it in order to be in closeness with our Father!! He is HERE! He is sitting next to me on my couch. He is inside of my heart listening to every thought and watching me type every letter.


Thank You God.


After digging deep and sifting through the sins in my soul, I finally can take a breath knowing that Jesus takes every one of them and casts them out with the trash. He doesn’t judge me. He doesn’t hold them against me. He doesn’t think differently about me (as if I’m telling him things he doesn’t already know, ha). He’s not discovering these things for the first time…I am. He is pleased with me. And He has forgiven me.


A cluttered home brings on feelings of anxiety, anxiousness, and chaos. A cluttered heart full of sin does the same. Sins inside of a cluttered heart take up space where only Jesus should reside. I am thankful to be on the path of decluttering and can’t wait to see the other things that Jesus brings to light that I can throw in the trash bag and lay before His feet.


*if you want to check out the decluttering lady’s podcast , her name is Dana K White of “A Slob Comes Clean.”


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