It's Just Stuff: Part One

This is one lesson that the last few years have taught me. It began with leaving our house in Elmer. We had lived there fifteen years, had our three children there, and loved it. The house had a large attic, a basement and an outbuilding. That allowed me to keep all the clothes and toys and what-not that can collect with kids. In addition, relatives looked at it as a dumping ground as they cleaned out their own messes. We were too young and too polite to say no. It's just stuff, right? We had room to cram it in. So we did.

In July of 2002 my dad passed away. That left my mother, then 83, in Pennsville alone in a big house. In April of 2003, we put our house in Elmer up for sale and the clean-out began. At first our end of the clean-out was rather easy. We took what we needed to my mother's house and left the rest to clean out later. This happened a little at a time on weekends. It seemed at times like the stuff multiplied while we weren't there. There was still a basement, attic and building full of stuff.

In February of 2004 our house sold. We went back one weekend to spend the night and have a yard sale. It was one of the most emotional times of my life. Processing all those memories and saying goodbye to a house we loved was devastating. The worst part was we still had stuff to get rid of. This is where God intervened.

The real estate agent for the people who were buying our house was also a pastor. He had his youth group come in for two days and clean out every last thing from the property. We provided a dumpster and they took what was good for fund raising. While the buyers were absolute pains in the ass from beginning to end, their agent proved to be our angel.

And that was part one of the lesson I learned about stuff: the physical and emotional burden that having too much stuff can be. The next part of my story will be about what my mother taught me about stuff.