How is your garage looking these days?
We all dread the days when we finally give in to reality and have to face the monster. The monster I am referring to is the dreaded 'cleaning out the garage" task.
You know how bad it can get. You can’t even drive your car into your garage because there is too much junk? I cannot think of very many things I dread more than this task.
My lucky son was given the task of having to do this job with me as that is what son's do right. :)
So Jason and I started into our task of cleaning our messy, messy garage. We had boxes upon boxes stacked in the garage. You know those things that we throw in there when we get tired of looking at it in the house. The old, "I will get to that later" thought.
Well, there was plenty of “I will get to that later boxes” and items stacked in my garage and were a bit overwhelming to even think about where to start.
We dove in and realized that we needed to start with whatever was in front of us and the in our way from accomplishing our goal.
As we were sorting thru old stuff I saw my son sitting looking thru a box of old things that we had collected thru the years. I let it go on for a bit until finally I had to let my son know that it was time to put it to the side and keep pursuing the goal. What he was doing was living in the past too long and forgetting what our main goal was, and that was to clean out the garage.
As I thought about this whole idea I realized the tie to recovery that this idea had. I mean, when I did my first moral inventory, step 4, I had a temptation of hanging out in the past and forgetting my goal of cleaning out my past to move toward a better me and life.
Man isn’t that true for all of us and don’t we all have to be ever so careful with this? We can get to looking at our past and even start reminiscing on how great things were when we were in sin. “Life was so much greater and full of fun and joy” we ponder. Really!?!? Then why was I so miserable? When I was stuck in a pity party about my life and all that had happened to me, I was getting nowhere. I had to identify those things so as to learn from them and give me tools to deal with it in the future but no dwell on it.
Much like the garage cleaning, I had to deal with each item and determine what was salvageable and what was in fact trash. I had to do the same thing in my recovery of life.
We are all in recovery called life. We all have something we are recovering from. Maybe it is just a hurt that someone else caused us. Chances are we have hurt someone else in the process as a result of the hurt done toward us. Hurt people, hurt people.
I am so much better off today having dealt with each piece of baggage from my past. I made the tough determination what needed to be discarded and let go of and what needed to be repaired and even what needed to be cherished.
God has made me stronger for it and now it is about cleaning my garage, or heart, mind, and thinking daily so that the junk doesn’t pile up anymore and keep me from allowing new healthy relationships, thoughts and things into my life.
How is your garage looking these days?
Rodney Holmstrom
For more info on Celebrate Recovery contact Rodney @ 479-659-3679 or roholmstrom@fellowshipnwa.org
You know how bad it can get. You can’t even drive your car into your garage because there is too much junk? I cannot think of very many things I dread more than this task.
My lucky son was given the task of having to do this job with me as that is what son's do right. :)
So Jason and I started into our task of cleaning our messy, messy garage. We had boxes upon boxes stacked in the garage. You know those things that we throw in there when we get tired of looking at it in the house. The old, "I will get to that later" thought.
Well, there was plenty of “I will get to that later boxes” and items stacked in my garage and were a bit overwhelming to even think about where to start.
We dove in and realized that we needed to start with whatever was in front of us and the in our way from accomplishing our goal.
As we were sorting thru old stuff I saw my son sitting looking thru a box of old things that we had collected thru the years. I let it go on for a bit until finally I had to let my son know that it was time to put it to the side and keep pursuing the goal. What he was doing was living in the past too long and forgetting what our main goal was, and that was to clean out the garage.
As I thought about this whole idea I realized the tie to recovery that this idea had. I mean, when I did my first moral inventory, step 4, I had a temptation of hanging out in the past and forgetting my goal of cleaning out my past to move toward a better me and life.
Man isn’t that true for all of us and don’t we all have to be ever so careful with this? We can get to looking at our past and even start reminiscing on how great things were when we were in sin. “Life was so much greater and full of fun and joy” we ponder. Really!?!? Then why was I so miserable? When I was stuck in a pity party about my life and all that had happened to me, I was getting nowhere. I had to identify those things so as to learn from them and give me tools to deal with it in the future but no dwell on it.
Much like the garage cleaning, I had to deal with each item and determine what was salvageable and what was in fact trash. I had to do the same thing in my recovery of life.
We are all in recovery called life. We all have something we are recovering from. Maybe it is just a hurt that someone else caused us. Chances are we have hurt someone else in the process as a result of the hurt done toward us. Hurt people, hurt people.
I am so much better off today having dealt with each piece of baggage from my past. I made the tough determination what needed to be discarded and let go of and what needed to be repaired and even what needed to be cherished.
God has made me stronger for it and now it is about cleaning my garage, or heart, mind, and thinking daily so that the junk doesn’t pile up anymore and keep me from allowing new healthy relationships, thoughts and things into my life.
How is your garage looking these days?
Rodney Holmstrom
For more info on Celebrate Recovery contact Rodney @ 479-659-3679 or roholmstrom@fellowshipnwa.org
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