My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.
My deep country roots have me singing these Jim Reeves lyrics on many levels this month. Hubby Doug and I are moving. Just across town to a place we can watch the sunset, but I’ve been watching the sunrise in the same place for the last 25 years. 25 years. There should be a law that everyone has to move every decade just so there can be a “purging of the stuff.” For a gal that is Good to Go, I have discovered that I can pack a suitcase and be gone a month and not blink...
But this sorting, deciding, and packing of a household, I’m pretty blank. I’ll blame it on not much experience. My parents were married for 63 years and lived in the same house my dad carried my mom over the threshold. I moved out for the first time when I went to college, but really never moved, just toted a few things to a dorm room and expected my mom to keep my room just like I left it. A couple of college digs in OKC, then back to Groovy Grove. I’ve moved only twice since then. So I’ve got years upon years of “treasures laid up” in closets and boxes instead of “beyond the blue.” However, I’ve discovered lots of gems that I hadn’t seen or used in a blue moon.
It’s time to downsize, and as the angels beckon me to “let go” and I’ve prayed that I could wake up and have it done. All these treasures - sweet gifts and tokens I would love to take… sadly there just isn’t room.
My friend and professional organizer, Ron, instructs me to ask a series of questions like: 1) Is it valuable? 2) Does it bring me joy? 3) Do I just like it? With those criteria, I’m not even sure I will get to make the move.
Honestly, the most helpful thing I did was watch an episode of “Hoarders”. After that, it was much easier to chunk junk.
We feel like we have a foot in one house, a foot in another and all our worldly possessions strung and flung between the two.
The other reason for the song is the sudden loss of our friend, Bob Hudson, in a plane crash last week. A wonderful, funny, healthy missionary doing a world of good for heaven’s sake, and he is gone. Always helpful and giving, he had texted us just a few hours before his fatal plane crash to ask us if we needed help moving. I wish so much now that we had said “yes”, but we were a little embarrassed by our mess.
Really, this move is a lot like traveling with baggage. It’s best to travel light, to take only what you will need, and don’t haul around a bunch of stuff that is just extra weight. The real treasures of this world are our friends, families and our memories. After all,
This world in not my home; I’m just a passing through.
