Letting go...

Our church is having its annual yard sale this weekend. Having some time at home today (to allow the A.C. guys to do their work in repairing our A.C.) has allowed me time to dig through boxes of buried treasures, in hopes of putting some of them in the sale.

It worked! I dug around in one area, then in another closet, then - oh, look in this box! (When the heck did I pack that, anyway?!) Oh, I forgot I had that! Oh, wow, that is u-g-l-y. Some of the stuff evoked strong memories from childhood, and even a few tears over long-lost friends and family members.

Piles began to form as I separated yard sale stuff from stuff to keep (after all, some stuff, though ugly, is precious). Amazingly, I now have a trunk full of stuff now going up to church to get sold - this in addition to the stuff I've already delivered to church!

It got me thinking about the habits that I hold onto, in addition to the stuff. Today, I was coming home to meet the A.C. guys. It was lunchtime; I was hungry. What I would've done B.D. (before diabetes) is to stop at any number of places on the way home to pick up some less-than-healthy combination of food. I would've come home and gobbled it all down. I thought hard about this habit as I drove home today. I determined that instead of doing the easy thing, I would do the just-a-bit-harder thing and come home to make myself some lunch.

Because, really, I've decided that at least part of living with diabetes is going to be about me letting go of some things. It has to be. It has to be, because not everything fits. Not everything fits into a healthier lifestyle - it just doesn't. And so, whether we're talking about improving our physical health, our mental health, or our spiritual health - at least part of it is about letting go of some things.

It ain't easy, friends. Some of these things have been with me for a long time. Some of these things have  been buried, packed away, hidden - and to pull them out takes time and energy and even some tears. But it's good - it IS good - because it's sometimes it's important - or, I would even say it's vital - to let go.