Stuff

  Well, that was different than I expected.

  In preparation for the big move, we got a quote or two from a full-service agency, but going on the assumption that I could drive a truck in a straight line without hitting anything, I rented a 26 foot moving truck and hired folks in Chattanooga & Columbus to load and unload the truck.  I couldn't rent anything bigger than a 26 foot truck, and about a week after arranging the rental, I started wondering if there would be enough room on the truck for all our stuff.  Brad, the head of Bizzy Bee Movers (They were really, really good, if you're in Chattanooga and looking for movers), said it might be close as to whether or not everything would fit in the truck.

  When moving day came, it wasn't close.

  Not even by a little.

  Fortunately, Penske offers unlimited mileage.  So I drove to Columbus.  Then drove back to Chattanooga.  Then back to Columbus.  1,400 miles in all.  (Big thanks to John Brandon, who did the first two legs of the journey and a whole lot of work on either end.  I don't know if I would have made it without him.)

  In the end, I'm left with one clear, overwhelming fact:  we own too much stuff.

  It's odd.  We didn't think we had an overwhelming amount of stuff.  We don't spend recklessly.  We try not to buy extra things.  But over the years, it just accumulated, and we didn't throw much out.  Much of the stuff comes from having small children, and I had a lot of boxes of books, but so much of it was just stuff, stuff that wasn't particularly meaningful to either of us, stuff that we weren't in a big hurry to get rid of but that we didn't necessarily use.  Rachel and I both had a prevailing sense of shame when we looked in the back of that first truck and realized that it wasn't big enough for everything we own.  We thought about the kids we sponsor in Africa and South America, wondering what they might say about our over-abundance of stuff.  I wondered if Abraham debated what size truck to rent when God called him into the unknown.  I wondered what Jesus might say to the disciples who showed up with two 26 foot trucks in tow.

  So what do we do now?  We've talked a lot about seriously evaluating the amount of stuff, about giving a lot away and being very careful about how we accumulate in the future.  The 2 boxes of books I have to give away are a trifling amount, but it's a start.  The move was eye-opening for us, and we hope that it will create some momentum to live more simply, that our stuff might not become a burden to weigh us down and prevent us from moving forward into the future God has prepared for our family.  May we not be so concerned about stuff and be more concerned about having open hands for what might come our way.