Stuffed

Perhaps it is the two giant stuffed dogs that a stranger won in Reno and kindly gave to our girls.  Perhaps it is the two Pooh bears Matt and I got suckered into buying at Disneyland, so the girls could have a ‘keepsake.’  Maybe it’s just the added addition of our puppy – Bella; or maybe it’s all of these things combined... but recently I have been amazed at the excess in our lives.

Yes, we sold our house, reduced our lives to 250 square feet but I’m still amazed at all that we’ve managed to stuff into this home on wheels. 

Admittedly, I felt a loss in the spring when we sold our beautiful home, on a beautiful street in the neighborhood of my youth.  I felt a loss when we sold all the funky, eclectic furniture we’d acquired over 13 years of marriage.  But then, slowly, as we set out on our journey, there came a certain lightness of being (as Matt explained in “Learning 250”).  We learned with each passing day that our attempt at simplicity and the drastic reduction of “stuff” was incredibly freeing...  Everything slowed down.  Ironically, life became a lot less crowded – even though we were living in a smaller space.

But lately I have become very aware of how much stuff we still have...  Our closets (1/8^th the size of normal closets in an average middle class home) are still filled with clothes, half of which none of us have worn on this trip so far.  We just came back from a huge grocery shop where we didn’t even flinch at our $200 grocery bill (which included some non-essentials, like a cheap DVD player, since our other one broke).  I can’t believe we are still able to live lives of excess, even in such small living space!

...And I wonder what Jesus thinks of it all?

Here we are on the doorstep of celebrating His Birthday, and I’m focusing on what I’ll buy for my two kids who already have too much.  As people who say that they follow Christ, aren’t we supposed to be choosing something different?  Shouldn’t we be continually striving to follow His example, and hoping that our lives might look more like His? 

If Jesus were here today, would we catch a glimpse of him at the local mall, purchasing those perfect gifts for Peter, James and Mary?  Actually, given that it’s Christ’s B-day, would we find Paul or Peter, James or Luke, shuffling through the crowds to buy Jesus a bath robe?

We have way more than most of the population, and still we want more...  We rationalize this lust for more with maxims of tradition and love for our family.  That’s what I do.

Proverbs 30:8-9 says, “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ 
Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.”

I pray that we who love Jesus would not disown Him this season, in order to make those around us a little more stuffed. 

Jesus, forgive us for how we’ve stuffed our lives with things we don’t need, built bigger barns to house it all, and forgotten that we, who have been given so much, are required to give more away... even our lives.  May you lead us all to become servants and friends to the poor and those in need, as an act of saying “I love you...and thank you for this life.”

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