May was the coldest and wettest May in the history of Colorado. Sometime during the second week I changed my seven to eight and added a jacket. The day with snow, winds above 40 mph, and temps hovering in the teens forced my hand. So, my seven was an eight. My gym shorts also broke (tie string snapped), so I swapped those out for pajama bottoms. I considered dropping the PJ's to keep things at a clean seven, but we just got two teen girls in the house (currently fosters, but praying for forever kiddos), and the thought of me sitting on the couch in my boxers while my one pair of jeans washed sounded like fodder for CPS, so we went to eight.
I realized that the spirit of minimization needs to be flexible, and if I were to hold too strongly to a number I would be legalistic in my approach instead of allowing God's grace to change my heart. He's not after a number, he's after me.
So, month one is done. We went 28 days juggling 7/8 items of clothing. At the start I was very self-conscious about the move, and was sure that people would begin commenting on my very small rotation of t-shirts, but nobody said a thing. As far as I know, the only people that noticed were those people I confessed to, and they were more amused than anything else.
I watched my pile of shirts and pants sit in my drawers and closet, and I didn't miss them at all. I have never been a big spender on clothing, so this was not a huge stretch for me, but I realized that I've spent way too much on clothing. I've been dragging clothes across the country in the defense that I "may need them." I have clothes that fit me 40 pounds ago, and I don't for-see a time coming up where I'll suddenly put on my pregnancy weight again.
At the end of the month Kate read a post online which said that the personal storage industry is the fastest growing in the country. More real estate is used for extra storage than any other purpose. Every person in the United States could fit under the collective roofing of our out of home storage. Ugh.
At the same time, there are people in this country who are cold, hungry, unable to keep the heat on, or even pay for a place to live. And we spend money to store things that we will probably never touch, but will drag all over the country in case we may need the things that we've most likely forgotten about.
I am ready to give things away, and look forward to that month. The day after we finished our clothing focus I put on a different tee shirt and felt extravagant. I wore another shirt yesterday. Today I'm back into my black tee, and I feel better. I did wear my hat, but beyond that I looked like I did all month. I have enough tee shirts to get me through a couple of weeks. I have a closet full of dress clothes that I wear only 2-3 times per year at most.
I'm not sure what we are going to do in a couple of weeks. I think this month was probably the easiest, and God did amazing things with my heart. I'm nervous about what comes next, but am more excited to be changed by grace.
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