Spring is in the Air!  I’ve always kinda felt that a cool gentle breeze is a kin to the Spirit of God.  You can’t see it – you just see the affects of it, but oh, you can surely feel it!  And doesn’t it feel good, especially on a hot day?  There are few things as welcome as that good, cool, gentle breeze!  It just makes me wanna smile on the inside.  That must be my spirit within, trying to express gratitude to God.  Isn’t it funny how a cool breeze can make you feel all warm inside?  Here’s to the mysterious ways of the season!!!

Today we, Christains around the world, celebrate that our loving Lord, Jesus Christ, rose from the dead!  When He ascended into Heaven, He did not need any baggage – well, I got to thinking… we don’t either.  As we do our spring cleaning, it’s also a great time to let go of the baggage in our lives, which we seem to just carry around on our weakened shoulders as we go through life.  We need not do this.  The good Lord offers to take our baggage from us.  Please… join me in trying hard to let go of all this needless baggage – to finally let God take it from us – He is able.  He wills not only to carry our baggage, our many sins, but He will also carry us when we are weak!  Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and He lives at the right hand of the Father, all mighty God.  Hallelujah!!!

I’ve put my house on the market – time to downsize – I guess you know you’re getting old when it’s time to downsize – ha!  Downsizing, to me, these days, just seems like the practical thing to do, so I’m gonna do it.  The idea of simplifying is very attractive to me.  I don’t look forward to going through everything, deciding what goes & what doesn’t, but I do look forward to having done all that.  Some day (soon, I hope), I’ll surely look back and be sooo glad I did this! 

I attended a conference one time when the subject was just this; going though stuff & downsizing.  I learned something very interesting and useful.  They were talking about what to do with stuff our loved ones left us if we really don’t like it, or don’t have room for it.  They said we should graciously accept the gift of course, but that once it’s ours, we’re free to get rid of it if we want.  (They said it’s a very liberating exercise – a way to help us move on with our life.)  Here’s the interesting thing… they said if we don’t like it, or don’t have room for it, but keep it anyway… we can end up actually resenting the giver, our loved one, for having saddled us with it.  Further, they explained that we are much better off (mentally) if we just go ahead and get rid of it – that is… if we neither like nor have room for it.

So… as you get the ‘fever’ to do some serious ’spring cleaning’, I encourage you to join me in simplifying your surroundings – your environment.  Free yourself from that, which you’ve been saddled, if you no longer like it nor have room for it!  As Nike would say, just do it!

I got to thinkin… isn’t it something that we, humans, can physically move (forward in life) while our emotions stay behind?  In other words, we can up and move to a different house, or even to a different city - we can date and even remarry (after the death of a spouse), and yet, our minds may be stuck in the past.  Any ideas out there how we can best move forward emotionally, in sync with our physical bodies?  We must!  What about this… perhaps our love for life can overcome our grief from death?  Or our love for the pursuit of happiness can overcome our fear of failure?  I could go on & on…