Unclutter Your Soul: A 7-Day DevotionalSample

Participate In Your Life

In my thirties I was ready to be a grown-up and take on the things I tended to avoid, but when things got tough, budget formulas seemed inconsequential. Try as I might to face reality, I had no idea what to do with a reality that didn’t match up to my ideals. Forget putting my fingers in my ears—I was now more like an ostrich with its head in the sand. 

In life there are things so overwhelming that before you have time to think or process what’s happening, your mouth sputters out the likes of:

“I can’t handle this.”

“I can’t deal with this.”

“This is too much.”

When we don’t know how to cope, we cope by not coping; we avoid. Avoidance becomes an option we don’t have to decide to take. It’s a place where we can pretend nothing is happening, and, therefore, we don’t have to change.

To the untrained eye, avoidance looks like doing a lot of nothing. I can tell you it’s anything but. It takes considerable energy to avoid something or someone, push back against change, overthink your circumstances, or pretend you can’t hear or see what’s going on when there’s actually no avoiding. You only delay things. I never fully viewed my avoidance as inaction because I was spending almost all my time (other than mothering) introspecting, coping, managing, preparing for every “what if,” and planning for “when and then.” All of the mental gymnastics required a level of doing, even if just in the mind.

Think of the energy we exert when we avoid a physical uncluttering in our homes. Because it feels like a daunting project, we convince ourselves that it’s easier to tidy around clutter than to organize or get rid of it. Surely clearing out will take far more time and effort than cleaning up does, we tell ourselves (as we exert more energy with all our emotional laboring over this looming task). In the long run we are exerting more energy because we are repeatedly tidying and cleaning things that we wouldn’t have to, if only we’d take the time to go through the process of uncluttering. 

At my worst, during bouts of depression, I spent an embarrassing amount of time staring at the wall, so vanquished mentally that I couldn’t move physically—too overwhelmed to even turn on the TV. The decision of what show to put on was literally too much.

To some this may sound extreme, and others know exactly what this feels like. It feels like something is exceptionally wrong with you. There must be—if the smallest decisions, like to what to eat, wear, or watch, are debilitating. If you have no tears left to cry. It’s as though your voice is foreign; it’s forgotten how to communicate, or maybe it never knew how to in the first place. It seems everyone and everything are in motion, except you. One unkind word will swallow you whole. You feel as if you’ve been left behind—even when you are right in the middle of it all. You’re flawed, defective even. Trapped in your own clutter. And you feel so much shame for not being able to get out from under it—when other people seem able to just toss it off.

Why couldn’t I get moving? Take action? Make a decision? Friends of mine, along with every person I scrolled past on Instagram, were out there hustling, living their lives, making decisions, and watching their dreams come true. And me? I couldn’t get out of bed, off the couch, or out of my closet. I’d try to hype myself up on the success of others, Pinterest quotes, and God’s promises.

It worked sometimes. But then I’d be right back where I started. Back to overanalyzing, not only my situation but why I procrastinated, why I couldn’t make decisions, or why I couldn’t take consistent action. I needed clarity. 

As I kept paying attention, the clues began to point to a pattern. A toxic cycle. I had been dissociating from my life—and there had to be a reason. 

Eventually I could no longer rely on my introspection and reflection; I needed the Holy Spirit’s revelation. I could see what I needed to change, but I needed Him to reveal the source, the root of my wounds, and I needed Him to keep showing me the Way.

He is the One who unlocks the door and turns on the lights in the forgotten spaces of our soul. Over here, He whispers. First walking through the door, then staying to sort things out—participating with us.

With the help of the Holy Spirit to peel back layer upon layer, clarification came.

We must take an honest look and ask; Do I withdraw from my life, or do I live it? I was withdrawing. I wasn’t living; I was fighting my life. I was battling the things I couldn’t control and avoiding the things I could control. Both led to self-sabotage.

My focus was on the lives of other people in my family, as well as strangers on the Internet that I was comparing myself to. I had been asleep to my own life, and the Holy Spirit was waking me up and inviting me to participate in my life. 

The Holy Spirit is waiting and He will do the same for you. Allow Him to show you how to begin to participate in your life today!

Respond

Share a time when you or someone you know was unable to participate in life.

What did you do? What did the Holy Spirit do?

Prayer

Father God, I want to be fully participating in the life You intend for me and in sharing the love of Jesus.