Piles

Do you ever feel like your life looks like this photo?  

Chaotic, a bit dysfunctional, like you've got your hand in too many bins, like you try to file things away in neat little containers, yet piles remain that you just don't know what to do with?  

Yesterday morning I started a massive project--one that I've put on the back burner for quite some time. I decided it was finally time to sort through the excessive number of storage bins in our garage and start the big purge. 

Several bins were full of maternity clothes, post-partum clothes, and clothes I wore before I got pregnant with Tess. Each frock charts the extraordinary amount of expansion and retraction the female body does in order to grow and sustain life. I sorted through bras ranging from a deflated size 34A (barely there) to rock hard 36E (wowzer), pants ranging from size 2 to size 12. Then I opened another can of worms--the bins containing the girls' clothes--and another sense of wonder struck me as I tried to imagine their current bodies fitting into newborn onesies. 

I dumped all of the clothes out and started to sort through them. By late afternoon I was surrounded by cascades of clothing, trying to fit them into different categories.

I had separate bins for 2T, 3T, 4T, and 5T girl's clothes. I set aside two bins of clothes for my friend Carly to take to an orphanage in Haiti. I smiled as I imagined these clothes being worn again, half way around the world, by little girls who don't have much of anything.  

By the end of the evening, at least eight massive black trash bags full of clothes for Goodwill lined the hallways. I started a separate container of maternity clothes to give to some of my local preggo friends. I had a bin of formal clothes I wanted to keep, but they need to be altered. 

I came across all of my scrub hats from my OR nursing days, the pair of red Dansko clogs I wore only in the operating room, which treaded daily on a mixture of betadine, bleach, and human blood. I wondered if I'll ever wear those hats and shoes again. I stored them in the bin for keeps.

This morning I dropped off a trunk full of clothing to Goodwill--literally, stacks of black trash bags busting out of my SUV. Dropping off those bags gave me a sense of finality, like the file has been officially shut on past chapters, case closed. It was something tangible to remind me that God has us on a different journey now--one that does not require these particular clothes to give and sustain life.

A few nights ago Chris and I were chatting on the couch.  I was complaining, which is customary for our late night chats, as I'm too tired at that time of day to think positive. I told Chris how fragmented I feel, like there are too many parts of me involved in too many things, which leaves me feeling like I'm a jack of all trades, master of none, uncommitted, spread too thin, and ineffective in any of my endeavors. And yet, I sense each thing in my life is there for a reason, but I struggle with not knowing how these different parts of me fit together...or if they ever will.

As I sorted through the bins yesterday, I found myself wondering if God has accidentally put too many passions in one woman, too many dreams for this singular heart to hold well. Sometimes I wish God would let us have it all mapped out, to know which containers are for what, to allow us to never have piles with big question marks on the exterior. I wish He would tell me how parts of my past will be used in my future, how the stacks of items I'm giving away will be used for blessing, which items I need to hold onto and those that belong in the trash. Sometimes I wish I only had one bin to deal with--how much easier it would be! I wish we lived in a perfect world where my foyer--and my self--never looked as dysfunctional and disorganized as it did yesterday.

But this is how life is. Entropy. Clutter. We have worn piles of clothing, still beautiful and useful, that we've suddenly outgrown. And there are other piles still, that we hold onto because we know we will still need them, but don't know how that will look.  

Oh, the mystery. Oh, how He weaves beauty from our collective dysfunction and chaos. Oh, how much we have to give away from the abundance He's already given. Oh, how He never gives us easy answers. This post kind of feels like the big blob that lay in my foyer yesterday, but I'm too scattered to try and make more sense of it. Oh well.

At least one thing is for sure.  

It's time to buy some BOY clothes.