Finding Contentment In Packing?

Cleaning out my room and closet to pack for college has been quite the chore.

I have been eliminating clothes from my whole wardrobe to either sell or donate. And the clothes I keep, I have been trying to coordinate what goes with what so I know right away what outfits work.

No, this is not a scene from the show "Hoarders." This is almost everything that I will be bringing to Northland, including: food, pots and pans, tupper ware, and other essentials.

Story behind this. A friend who went to the same school told me her secret to being able to store so much in a dorm room with three other ladies. For her shoes, she brought a wide tub that could fit under the bed. It didn't occur to me until tonight that I had TWO underneath my bed. One holding some artwork from when I was in elementary school through high school. Another holding VHS tapes! So I decided it was time to let the 90s go, and pitch the VHS tapes. Bye-bye X Files, Facts of Life, and Marilyn Monroe movies. I'll see you on DVD if I get in the mood.

After all this cleaning, I'm thinking to myself how much I have and how much I don't think I have. 

Maybe it's a girl thing, but I think I have enough clothes to last me for a while, but then a new season of clothes come out, and I figure I "need" new clothes (quotations to point to the fact I usually don't). Granted, the school I am going to required that me to update my wardrobe, but along the way I started buying knick knacks I may not have necessarily needed. So my solution has been buying what I think I need, waiting to see if I wear it, and if after a week I don't, I return it. This has saved me a lot of money, and has kept me from regretting seasonal outfits that could quickly go out of style.

And you know I have thought of what the Bible talks about regarding my issue of contentment. That is FIND IT! It's there! I just have to look straight at it to get the vibe for it. The Apostle Paul wrote how he found contentment in a jail cell. 

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.~ Philippians 4:11-13

The whole joyful book of Philippians is a prisoner's letter. Sounds ironic, right? If he had joy and peace, surely I can have it.

I might need to back up, and mention how I have a tendency to be sentimental towards things in my life. Things that have lived through my childhood. To give up a collection of VHS or clothes that have sat in my closet for years has made me swallow my pride of the comforts in life and do what I know need to do.

Selling clothes will give me a little more for the next few years as I go to college and not work. Giving clothes away can help someone who is in need. Pretty much not attaching myself to these things helps me stop at the line of being a hoarder, and be glad in the things I do have. Just like Paul!

This packing business is stressful, but also has been a great reminder of where I can find contentment. That is, no matter how many outfits I have or food I can afford through school, I can find contentment in Christ. I can do anything he gives me strength to do.

I sometimes compare myself to people in third world countries, and wonder what I can live without. I know a lot. I could probably give up a meal in a day, and still be okay. Or have five outfits, and not die of embarrassment. 

Tonight I want to ask, "What can we do without?" 

Probably a lot more than we would like to imagine.