I have mentioned that in order to move into a 5th wheel trailer from a 4 bedroom house you have to let go of most of your material possessions. I knew I would write about this eventually and after this weekend I think that time has come.
Of course we could have took the storage unit route and paid for all of our things to be stored month after month for I don't know how long. A lot of full timers decide to do this. We could have decided that we were not ready to let those things go and keep a tight hold on them. And I am sure that could have been ok. We only went back and forth for about a week on it but easily decided that was not what God was calling us to do. Things are things.
It's funny because we often reminisce about our first apartment and the horrible hand me down furniture we had. I loved that apartment though! Everything we owned was given to us and it was given out of love. That is until Zach got his first big signing bonus from Uncle Sam. Then we got us a big ol TV 😂, which we still have by the way. Anyways, as you grow in marriage and career you aspire to have nicer things, right?
So after all these years, I was excited to be in this big beautiful home, away from the military moves breaking our things! We've purchased a lot of the "dream" furniture that we had saved for over the years. It's actually ironic now as we sell all of these pieces and collections. The less we have around the house the easier it is to see what we really need versus what we thought we wanted.
Breaking news!! We are officially done yard sailing!!! I am so not a fan of being in charge of a yard sale lol I will go to them and shop at them ALL DAY long but please don't make me get up early, set up and sell stuff! And then clean up just to do it again the next day! If you love having a yard sale at your house well then I am in awe of you and you are incredible. I just can't do it.
But guess what!? We had one this past weekend. And of course it was a huge blessing and God uses any forum He wants to do the work of His kingdom! I'm not going to say we didn't go into the yard sale to make money because of course we did. However, from the beginning we wanted it to be more about blessing people than about monetary value. I had some VERY sentimental items out in this yard sale.
Here's just a couple examples.... My Aunt Claudia's china was given to me when she went on to heaven. I was able to "sell" it to one of my favorite ladies for a fraction of the cost. Why would I do that when it was worth so much? Well, because that is what she could afford but mostly because I knew she would cherish it and love it as much as I did. And that is what I cared about. Another example: My grandma had painted when she became an empty nester and we had about 6 of her paintings. I never got to meet her before she went to heaven. I was sad that her paintings wouldn't find a home. God brought a beautiful woman to the yard sale that just became an empty nester and was turning her daughter's bedroom into an office. When she heard the story of these paintings she connected with them and wanted every single one! Instead of charging her we just gave them away.
The people who came to our yard sale came looking for a deal but we were looking for people to bless. I truly believe we did that and I know God blessed us immensely with the amount of our household items we were able to pass on!
I still have two totes of very personal things I have to go through. Deployment letters, picture albums, scrap books, memory boxes, documents, journals, writings, diaries, and so much more. This will be the next step in the downsizing process. I started..... but it was too emotional. So I am going to do the healthy thing and put this off for another week or two 😆
Here's to an empty attic, an empty garage and an almost empty house! Thank you for those friends and family members that are praying us through this exciting transition in our lives!
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