Goodwill

Remember when I talked about meeting the needs of others during Lent? Our first step was to give to Goodwill this past week.

I know, I know. It's really not that exciting. And it's not like we never give to Goodwill.

But I think the motivation this time was different than it's been in the past. This time, we were getting rid of "nice" stuff. You know how sometimes you only give away clothes and stuff that you don't think anyone would want? This time, we gave away clothes we'd been planning on selling back to retail shops. Shoes that were still good but that we didn't need. A couple of household items that were actually useful but we knew we ourselves would never use. And it was good.

The haul.

The interesting thing was that filling up all those bags didn't even require any kind of real search or cleaning out. This was just stuff in our closets and "on the surface," if you will. It's amazing how you think you've gotten everything down to bare bones or basic essentials, then you look back over it a month later and see everything you missed. It's easy to let blessings pile up and turn into junk--I hope we can always be reminded to use ours to bless others.

I foresee another trip to Goodwill soon, if I can ever get Travis to clean out all his boxes from the guestroom. ;)