Things

You’d think after three trips to and from Nigeria that this transition home would be smooth. It DOES get easier each time, but it’s still bumpy. Maybe it’s just the jetlag, but right now I’m overwhelmed by so many THINGS.

Things I HAVE: a closet filled with enough shirts, pants, and skirts to clothe an entire village, a pantry stocked for a month-long blizzard, and a garden overgrown with weeds and mint (wait, mint IS a weed!).

Things to DO: pay bills for 24/7 electricity (unlike Nigeria), water, cable television, internet, texting, and our five-bedroom house for the two of us, as well as wash the village wardrobe, buy fresh food, pull the weeds, and clean the empty nest.

Things to BE (in random order): Victims’ Advocate with the police department, Mission & Outreach Center Leader at church, Coordinator of the Save-A-Life program, Writer, Disciple, Wife, Mother, Daughter, etc..

Ever watched the show ‘Clean Sweep’? People’s houses are so full of THINGS that the only way to clean is to take everything out, prioritize and organize, and then put in only the really important things. In the process, they make three piles: Keep, Toss, and Give Away. At the end of the half hour show, their lives are in order and they’re ready to start anew – hardly reality.

It’s going to take me longer than thirty minutes, but I hope to keep only the essentials, toss everything that distracts me from my relationship with God, and give away as much as I can.