Our home is full of things acquired over decades. Days I once spent shopping, I spend hauling loads to various consignment and thrift stores. This process of letting go made me think about the wisdom of Scripture. I don’t want my possessions to possess me. At first, letting go of what I’ve treasured feels like a loss, not a gain. Seeing the gain takes time and spiritual eyes rather than physical ones.
Letting go became easier when I saw how God turned my losses into a blessing for someone else. For example, one downsizing day I decided to find a new home for a box of fabric pieces. I offered them as quilting supplies in an online marketplace. The husband who claimed them said they would be a surprise for his wife. Although multiple sclerosis limits what she can do, she can still sew, he said, adding that these scraps would hopefully encourage her to make the quilt she’d been talking about. My loss became a sign of his devotion to her.
This message is excerpted from “Letting go” by Kathryn Haueisen in the July/August 2020 Gather magazine. Today we commemorate Maximilian Kolbe, 1941; Kaj Munk, 1944; martyrs. Today is the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost.
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The past month I have been making room for a friend to live in my home and have been sorting through many belongings including a partially hooked 5′ by 7′ rug on burlap thai I started before our children were born. I can no longer work on it because the bulap desintegrates when hooked on. I needed the room it took up so I laid it out on my front deck, took several pictures, and the rug landed in the garbage along with some of the motheaten old wool suits I had planned to use in making the rug.
I have also been going through my fabric stash. There were many small pieces that I have used over the years in all sorts of Sunday school and craft projects. They went out in the recycling, Many pieces in sizes that would make several quilt blocks to a dress went to my churches quliting group. One of the quilters had a friend who might use some of the of the fat quarters and smaller pieces and the group kept the larger ones for quilt tops and backs.
Having the picture of my rug project, and knowing that some of the fabric will help keep others warm made is easier to give away fragments of crafting and sewing memories and dreams.