Have you ever relocated or helped someone else with a move? To say it’s a physically, emotionally, and even spiritually draining task is an understatement. I recall the times when I would be packing up to come home from college for the summer. I was convinced that my stuff had somehow multiplied ten-fold during the nine months or so I was on campus. My parents drove a very small car at the time (a light blue Mercury Lynx hatchback, I believe), so the look on my Dad’s face as he’d survey the myriad of boxes and bags was always priceless. But Pops was an electrical engineer and a genius. He would always figure out a way to pack it all up and still leave room for us. Sure I was squashed between my bedding and my shoe bag, but still it all fit. I was genuinely impressed. Apparently, that gene skips a generation because I’m often challenged just trying to find room in my car for my groceries.

Several years after graduation, I moved into my first apartment. It was time to pack everything up again, except this time I was also taking furniture. My Dad’s little car wasn’t going to hold all the stuff this time. I believe we rented a small truck and with some help I was off. That was a major life transition. In college I always had the option to come home for a weekend or during breaks. Technically, I still lived at home. This was different. Now I had a new address. Sure I came back home for Sunday dinners, but I didn’t live there anymore. It was bittersweet–thrilling and sort of scary at the same time.

Speaking of scary, about 15 years later, after three apartments and associated moves, I needed to go back to my childhood home. I was now in my early 40s and the whole experience was quite humbling and strange. (That’s fodder for another article down the road, perhaps.) I stayed in the main house for about a year and then moved into the attached apartment. I’ve been there ever since. But now times are changing again, and another move is on the horizon.

In the past, before I packed up, I would always take time to go through all my stuff in the hopes of paring down and consolidating things. By the second or third move, I took a serious look at everything and noticed that I kept bringing some stuff from place to place to place. The problem was I never unpacked it or used it. Has that ever happened to you? You see a box filled with memorabilia or clothes or whatever that you’ve been toting from location to location, but you never seem to use any of it. The box (or boxes in my case) either ends up in a paid storage facility or discreetly stashed in your new home.

Just how many times can you move the same box before you realize it’s time to let it go?

Sometimes it’s hard to part with what’s in that box. It may be something of sentimental value, perhaps something given to you or left by a loved one. You hate to get rid of it, but you have no practical use for it, so it stays in the box. And you carry that box to the next home…and the next.

I’m currently going through literally everything I have as I prepare for this next, great move. I know there will be boxes that haven’t been opened since I first stepped foot into this apartment. Will I have the courage to part with them this time? Will I be able to be dispassionate and separate my sentimentality from practicality? I’m not sure.

One advantage of technology is that should I decide to finally part with anything, I can always take a picture of it as a memento. That will only take up memory on my phone, rather than real estate in my home. And it will certainly be cheaper than a monthly storage rental fee. But going through this natural process has got me thinking on a deeper level about how it parallels with what we carry in our hearts and minds.

What stuff are you holding on to that’s cluttering up your life?

I don’t know about you, but I’m becoming very aware that there is a huge box of emotional stuff that I’ve been carrying with me throughout my whole life. Past hurts, disappointments, and rejections all in a box just taking up space in my heart. I don’t go into that box; it’s buried deep down and out of sight. But it’s still there. No matter where I go, and no matter how I move on in life, it comes with me. I carry it into the next chapter. It’s a heavy box, but I’m so used to bringing it with me, I don’t notice its weight anymore. The older I get though, the harder it is to find room for it. I’ve got all these other life experiences: career achievements, friendships, family, faith, and they deserve their rightful place. So what do I do with that unopened box?

Perhaps it’s time to tackle my emotional stuff box and go through it just as I would a box filled with college textbooks. I can take pictures of the memories I want to keep, but the rest has got to go. But why would I want to take a mental picture of a hurt, disappointment, or rejection, you may rightly ask. Sometimes it’s important to keep a small reminder of what you’ve overcome and just how much you’ve grown. Mind you, I’m not buying a special frame for those pictures. You surely won’t find them proudly displayed on the mantelpiece. They’ll still be tucked away, but they won’t weigh nearly as much as they once did. And I’ll have so much more room for all the wonderful things yet to come.

Am I suggesting this is an easy thing to do? Absolutely not. Am I saying that if you choose not to open your box today that somehow you’re failing or missing the mark? Not at all. Honestly, I don’t know that I’ll even be able to do that in my own life, so I’m certainly not going to judge anyone else.

What I know is that there is value in unpacking those things that no longer serve us, regardless of our emotional attachment to them. I also believe that we can do this, however difficult it may be and however long it takes, because the Bible says this:

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13 NKJV, biblegateway.com, emphasis added)

Each life is so rich with events and memories that it can never fit in a box. If I don’t have a lot of material possessions when my time comes to go home to be with the Lord, who cares? That’s not the sum total of my life. That’s not me at all. We are so much more than the things we own. We are so much more than all the stuff. We shouldn’t hope to be remembered for the car we drove or the home we owned or even the career we had. I’m not against hard work and achievement. But I want to be remembered for how I loved and cared about others, how I used any talents God gave me to bless other people. I want to be known as someone who wasn’t afraid to express her faith and did her best to “walk-the-walk”. I want someone to smile and laugh a little when they think of me. Most of all I want them to remember that I always had room for more love and more connection in my heart.

How do you want to be remembered?

Today let’s commit to start sorting through some of our unopened boxes and making room for all the great and beautiful things God still has in store for each and every one of us.

Until next time: stay happy, stay healthy, stay in the know.

Look forward to hearing from you,

-Kat