While others begin their New Year with countdowns and resolutions, I prefer to review and bring order to my surroundings. For as long as I can remember, heading out on New Year’s eve and ringing in the New Year really hasn’t been my cup of tea. The thought of partying all night and paying for it the rest of the weekend just didn’t do much for me. I don’t know exactly when it started, but at some point, the idea of cleaning up the old and starting afresh became “my thing” around the first few days of the year.

All at once, I resolve to attack those stacks of books and papers that have piled up and the drawers that caught one too many objects. I move from room to room and write down my plan of attack. Then its downstairs to the filing – shredding the old and actually filing that stack of papers on top of the cabinet. I end with investment and health insurance paperwork getting reviewed and in order.

When these things don’t get done, I begin my year feeling so unorganized. It simply leads to more of the same and then life itself gets out-of-order. Hey, I’m a pretty active mom of four and when my kids are around, I always choose them. Sounds endearing, but sometimes it can leave you with clutter and stuff that builds and takes up precious space for better things. And then what do you do when the unexpected happens and life as you know it comes to a screeching halt.

This actually happened to us back at the end of 2014. I resolved to organize all the photos in the house. Years of photo albums and frames were gathered along with event memorabilia and placed on a table in my craft room. I had great intentions of organizing the photos, then creating digital files of them to create new photo books. I began to collect and organize, with this being my yearlong project for 2015. But that never happened. A series of things happened in our life that either needed our attention or consumed our everyday thoughts and actions, leaving us to live in the moment while the rest of our life took a back seat around us. The “photo mound”, as we affectionately call it, remains an eyesore in the center of the craft room that has become a huge barrier in doing anything creative in that space. But as I said, life happens and sometimes you have to hit pause for a while. Sometimes God says not now, this must wait….and we must listen.

This was our first Christmas season without the usual hustle and bustle of the kids in the house. It was different, for sure, but no awful. There was time for sorting through and appreciating things that have gone unnoticed for years. There was extra time for cleaning out and organizing, making room for a new way of life for my husband and I. I’m feeling rather accomplished – drawers are cleaned, stacks of books and papers are tossed or filed, bookshelves are emptied, and oh that “photo mound”, well, my kids bought me a scanner for Christmas – looks like we might make some progress in that area this year as well.

So here’s to new beginnings and a simple resolution to find peace in where God is calling our attention in the moments of our life. To accept that He has a better plan than we ever could and that when we fill our lives with stuff, He sometimes has to hit our pause button to become better listeners and do the hard work of de-cluttering our surroundings for His plan to take place.

I hope you enjoyed your visit to the garden, where I share the challenge of Sowing Sunday Living In A Weekday World. If you did, please share your thoughts in the comments or share this post using #gardenerstouch.