(the outfits on this cover !. . . I just couldn't throw this manual away.)
Weighing In: I cleaned out our file cabinet this week. No. A better word would be I purged our file cabinet. There were files filled with articles on Christmas tips, parenting advice, dating ideas (as well as ideas for date invitations and ideas for accepting dates), articles on organizing and a pamphlet on grieving. There was a 1974 girls’ camp manual, a 2003 West Point manual, a 2005 Air Force Academy manual and a 1980 calligraphy manual. There were also receipts from dead appliances and expired insurance policies. Everything was in its organized file, much of it was useless. They were nothing but dead weight and it felt good to be rid of them.
Weighing In: I also found this poster that I drew (copied?) several years ago for a lesson that included Isaiah 5:28, “Woe unto them that draw . . . sin as it were with a cart rope.” Isaiah can be a bit tricky for me to understand so when I found a verse that made sense and gave me a visual, I clung to it. I could envision “drawing sin with a cart rope.” It reminded me of a little man (because they’re easier to draw than women) that threw all of his garbage in a cart—dead fish, rotten squash, frozen pumpkins, meat scraps, dog manure—and hauled it around by a rope. If he would have just emptied it—buried it properly—he wouldn’t have had to endure the stench or the weight, but he would rather have pulled it around. Woe. Woe. Woe. My sins are the same. They stink. They’re heavy. They’re dead weight. It makes so much more sense for me to get rid of them and bury them properly. Go. Go. Go.
Weighing In: In second grade we used to chart our vitals (weight/height) on the back wall each month. One month I proudly showed a classmate that my numbers were some of the highest. She told me I wasn’t supposed to be proud of that. I didn’t know that. I thought bigger was better. I was a dozen years ahead of my time. Twelve years later I met my Tongan friend, Seine. Seine used to come to my dorm room to weigh. One night she nervously slid the scales out of the closet and stepped on them. When the dial settled, she cried, “Oh no! My mother will be so angry with me because I have lost one. I only have 167 of them left.”
Do you have any weigh-ins?
8 comments:
I will literally be weighing in daily when I start the next round of my diet next week. I'm looking forward to losing a little more of what I don't want!
That poster is definitely a great visual for carrying around sin. I've used a backpack full of rocks to teach the kids in primary before and it's very effective.
Oh my goodness to Seine's comment about losing one!
Hmmmm, I have been getting rid of many things the last few weeks. However, I gained 10 things I did not want over the holidays!
Here we come double workouts and fat free food items!!
We are purging the "den" turned storage room this winter. I am also going to purge a few extra pounds. Okay, more than a few, hopefully! As well, there will be many opportunities for purging as we go thorugh clothing, toys, and other accumulations. Yes, yes - much weighing in to be done in 2010.
Oh sister!! so much weighing in to be done!! today i purged adam's room- 3 garbage bags full!! Monday is my room's turn.
I love this! Great takes. I have so much to purge from my life, both in the form of files and junk and in the form of sin. Thanks for the visual.
David and I cleaned out my mom's kitchen cupboards over Christmas and we took 6 bags to Goodwill. Most of it was Tupperware from a million different people who have passed on and my mom has picked up... It was nice to help get rid of clutter.
Since I graduated, I decided to get rid of school stuff. I always love doing that. I got rid of 10 binders that were FULL of stuff. And much, much more when away too. It felt so nice.
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