Something New Pushing Through

When I was little, I had a terrible time losing my baby teeth.  In contrast, my older brother Brent went after his teeth and worked on them until they surrendered.  He’d emerge from the bathroom, a trickle of blood at the edge of his mouth, triumphantly showing us the tooth.  I was horrified and let my own loose teeth hang by a thin thread.  I refused to let my mom pull them for me.  Sometimes the new adult tooth would push forward, making the baby tooth exit whether I was okay with that or not. 

Letting go can be tricky for me in other areas too.  Our guest room closet is my place for stashing things.  After lots of work on other parts of the house, I’d say I’m pretty good at decluttering.  The items in this closet are a different story.  They fall into the category of “so valuable to me at one point in my life, but not in use or probably ever in use again, but no idea how to proceed.”  Whew!  That’s a mouthful.  All this is to say, it’s my decluttering dead end.

Today, I approached the guest room closet with fresh determination.  I took everything out and began sorting into piles.  Surprisingly, I was able to let go of things.  My Keep pile is a small fraction of the whole.  There is a papercut art design from China in the giveaway pile.  I shredded a huge stack of old paperwork and notes that I’d kept for a decade “just in case”.  I took the photos out of a huge frame that I’d used to make a collage of my international travels.  The photos are going in an album and I’m selling the mammoth frame.  These were all so important, so valuable, in their season.  How can I let them go so easily when even a year ago, I couldn’t do it?  This is what I was wondering the whole time.  I was trying to figure myself out.

I think it’s because the adult tooth, so to speak, is pushing through.  More clearly than before, something new is arriving.  We need space in that room for a foster child.  I can recognize the items’ past value and see that they are not needed for where I am or where I’m going.  As I went through the items, I thought of what a child might enjoy having in the room.  I talked with God in my head about the past and wondered what the future would look like.  There is so much more to decluttering than just making physical space.  God is also making emotional, mental, and spiritual space for His new thing to come into my family’s life.   

I researched "verses about God and new things" and this is what I found:

• Ecclesiastes 3:1  There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. 

• Isaiah 43:19  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. 

• James 1:17  Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 

• Hebrews 13:8  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 

• Joshua 1:9  Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

As I see it, there are parallel truths occurring here:  God brings new things in their seasons AND God is unchangingly with us always.  His constancy is the very thing that enables me to embrace the new.  To make space (as Brent did 😊).  To let go.  I can do it because my foundation isn’t changing.  God keeps me secure as I go on to new adventures.

Thank you, my loving God, for all the beautiful steps of faith we’ve gotten to walk together so far.  Thank you for the life I had as a single woman.  I’m grateful to have seen and lived so many amazing stories.  You are bringing the next thing and I praise you for helping me make space for it.  I don’t know the full extent of what you have for our family, but thank you for everything.  Amen.

photo credit