BY JESSICA LANDMON
I know this sounds crazy, but I just love the new year purge – new Christmas gifts come in and old items go out. It’s the time of year in our house where we carefully look through our closets and drawers to see if there are any items that we can get rid of. It is so freeing to fill garbage bag after garbage bag of items to donate or, in some cases, just throw out.
We have been doing this ritual in my house every year since my kids were little. I have always stressed how important it is not to hold on to things that we no longer have use for –stained, broken, out of style, or maybe it no longer fits. If we aren’t careful, these items can just encumber our space if left undealt with.
To take this one step further, the new year is a great time to reflect on the previous year to see if there are some habits, attitudes, or mindsets that have developed and that need to be purged as well. It is amazing what type of clutter builds up in our hearts and minds over the course of a year. It is so necessary to examine our hearts and minds, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, to see if we need to discard of anything that is harmful to our spiritual walk.
Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. – 1 Corinthians 7:1
Perhaps this previous year you have broken your spiritual discipline and haven’t spent enough time in the Word or in prayer. The new year is a great time to reset and start again. Or maybe you have allowed unforgiveness and bitterness to take root in your heart because of something that was done to you. Well, there is nothing like a new year to let go of those hurts and allow the Holy Spirit to take occupancy in your heart once again.
Ladies, I don’t know what kind of stuff you’ve collected over the year, but the new year is definitely a great time for examining it. The new year is a blessing from the Lord – a clean slate, and time to start afresh. Don’t miss out on what God has in store for you in 2020 because you are still dragging around the clutter from 2019.
Happy New Year!