Clear the Clutter

We are into week 3 of Women Living Well Making your home a haven challenge.

Last week we continued to have our candle lit and added in playing music throughout the day.





The candle has continued to be a wonderful reminder to pray.
1 Thessalonians 15:17 "pray continually;" 
It has been so nice to have the candle lit. As I see the flicker I simply say a silent sentence prayer. Love it!!

The music this week has been great backdrop noise to our day. It inspired impromptu dance parties in the living room with Jake. And moments of reflection for me as I cleaned and went about my day. It is definitely makes you think when you are getting frustrated before you speak when something like "Lead Me" or "Our God" is playing in the house.

Week 3's challenge is....
List a few of the spots in your home that make you visually stressed because of all the clutter. Now go buy something for that spot - like a basket to put it all in! Work on cleaning up clutter. Throw things away. While you're at it - clean up some clutter in your spiritual life. What gets in the way of your peace spiritually? 

An area in our home that definitely is a clutter collector is our stairs. Call it lazy, but when things are down stairs and they belong upstairs I just put them on the landing at the bottom. I should walk up stairs and put them where they go, but for whatever reason I just pile the stuff up. And to make matters even worse a lot of times I will walk up the stairs several times before I actually pick up the stuff and bring it with me. I will for sure be working on this during the week. Making it a point to take things up the stairs instead of piling them at the bottom. 


Our other area (well it is actually a whole room) of clutter is our computer room. It is up stairs so when guest come over they don't typically see this room. Therefore things that don't really have a place get moved there when I  clean.  I tackled this room over the weekend and it looks a million times better. Hopefully we will keep it this way. I will post the super embarrassing pictures of this room later this week. 


And the other part of the challenge is spiritual clutter. Because I typically have my quiet time first thing in the morning some days it is so hard to focus. I have a million things running through my mind of what needs to be done that day. Or watching the clock  because we have somewhere to be early that day. During this challenge I am making a point to clear my mind before I sit down to pray and read God's word. To start I will add a few minutes in the morning to make a list of things that need to get done that day. In hopes that this will help me to not think about them so much when I really want/need to be focused on much more important things. My day and tone of our home is totally different when I have a purposeful quiet time with God before the day begins. 


So are you in the challenge this week? Are you clearing clutter from your life both physically and spiritually?