I've been here four years. I know to some people that sounds like no time at all, but it is the longest I have lived in any one place in my whole adult life. When I came back here I had nothing. Well, very little anyway. Most of my furniture had burned in a fire. I left much of what I owned in the UK back in the UK. I had been working as a volunteer, so I had almost no money. In a way I was almost starting from scratch... apart from one very significant thing, family. I came back to family and it has been so good to be living and working with my family and learning from and with them. I am so grateful that during the darkest parts of the last few years I have had family to walk beside me. I am perhaps even more grateful that during some of the brightest moments of the last four years my family were there to walk beside me as well.
I am so blessed to have a family that knows and loves God and are seeking to follow him. That isn't a very popular road to be on, even to some other Christians. It can, in fact, be incredibly lonely... an alien pursuit by the worlds standards. But God, in His goodness, brought me back home and kept me close to like minded people as I grew and healed and hoped.
Somehow, as all that was happening I also acrued a lot of possessions. Vehicle, furniture, clothing, masses of books, linens, etc,etc, etc.. and not just cast offs that were given to me so I wouldn't look poverty stricken, but my own "things." Things that I like, that are my taste... things that somehow represent me.
Since it's the first time in my life that I've had so many "things" of my own; I was surprised when I decided to move the power these things had to hold me. Decisions had to be made on what was to be done with them. What I take with me, what I sell, what I give away. I thought I wasn't very materialistic, but then I found myself not wanting to give everything away. As I went through my belongings I came up with very ligitimate reasons WHY I should keep everything, WHY it would be fine to store all my stuff and decide at a later date what should be done with it. But then... then my mum reminded me again of God's call on us to take of the poor, the widowed, the orphaned. She was doing a clean sweep, selling what she could so she could give the proceeds to Hands at Work Africa (A VERY worthwhile charity, check it out!) and I realized it profited me nothing, nor helped anyone else for me to hide away my possessions.
Well now, here is the very cool thing about selling what you have to give to the poor. You feel free!
I don't have all this stuff to worry about any more. (I still have some, but at least 9 boxes less than I did) I can start fresh (again) knowing that my heavenly Father can, and does, provide for me. On top of that you feel great knowing that this stuff that tied you down is now blessings someone else here in Canada AND the small fee they paid for it will go a long way to helping those in need on the other side of the ocean!
