This is a repost I originally wrote in April of 2009.Since then, a lot has changed.
We've moved two times, changed states, I quit my job to stay home and Nathan found a position and ministry he loves.
Instead of a small one bedroom basement apartment in the city, we live in a four-bedroom ranch house in a small Iowa town.
But as I make my list for Spring Cleaning, I find the same Truths:
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It's spring cleaning once again around here in the Richardson household. Sorting though the desk, cleaning the cupboards, paring down the closets. And you know what I'm finding: appreciation.
Surprising but true, as I take inventory of what we own I'm finding sweaters I forgot about, books I still have to read, more shoes than any person could really need. And I have to tell you, we live in a land, in an area of affluence, of opulence, of indulgence. And I have found in the year and a half that we have lived here: of want.
So I am cultivating and attitude of simplicity. Intentionally, and painfully. That deep yawning abyss within my person will NEVER be satiated with a larger home, a nicer sofa, more nail polish.
I live in the shadow of the larger WANT. I want. I will always want because I am not yet complete. I am not yet whole. His spirit and His grace is still at work in my life and my soul. So I live in the deeper wanting. I really want HIM.
So when the sneakier, smaller wants creep in to my thoughts, I try to remember that they are not what I should be focused on. They are crumbs falling from the feast and were never meant to satiate my hunger.
So this spring, this season, I'm trying to embrace what Oswald Chambers termed "the blessedness of possessing nothing." With open palms and a gracious heart to breath in the knowledge that everything, tennis shoes to family, are mine... but not really. I will always be left wanting. And that wanting serves a glorious purpose to draw me closer to what I am here in this earth to want. And in THAT pursuit find fulfillment.
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