On occassion, I check out the blog "Cultivating Home" that Ann introduced us to a while back. Tonight I thought, I wonder what nice Christmas-y post might I find? Now, the following is not a Christmas post, but what better sentiment at this time of year than the following. With all our family is going through, and knowing Sean, Maggie and I will have our first real Christmas together, I am very full of love and satisfaction. There are things that I need to pray on, and bumps that still need smoothing in my life, but right now, I feel only gratitude for my family...everyone.



I am never ceased to be amazed at how God has blessed us as a family. We have much love, happy children and the home in the country we always dreamed of. We've been rich and we've been poor but we've never been without love for each other and have always been surrounded by the richness of God's love.
Lately, as I've been homemaking, I've been finding myself a bit discontented with things. The upholstery on our sofa has a big rip, the darkness of our kitchen becomes overwhelming with the shorter days, on and on I could go. Missing the beauty of what God has blessed us with, children to make rips in the furniture and a big kitchen where friends gather and I can bless people with meals and hot bread and cookies and milk.

More and more as I thought on it, I began to see that my life doesn't consist of furniture needing replacement (although some does!) and it doesn't consist of things to be remodeled. I realized I have a lot of "stuff". I am surrounded by things. And so I've been going through things, de-cluttering life, a garbage bag per room.

The guideline I am using is: is this item being used for the service of God or others?

Its been a great screening tool, let me tell you! Does this item bless my family or the people we have in our home? Am I holding on to a useless item for sentimental reasons? Is it something someone else could make use of or be blessed by? Do I have this in my home to impress people or make them comfortable?(I particularly liked this part) There is line upon line of thought that can build upon the principle of only having things that are useful for serving God and others.Well, I'm off to tidy some more! Join me.