This past weekend was absolutely beautiful, it was a cool and crisp, but warm and sunny. I love the fall, such an incredible time of year to reflect. I find myself really stopping to look at the leaves, smell the fresh air and thinking back on all the wonderful memories of the summer. The fall always promps me to want to nest, organize and prepare for the upcoming year. I went through and organized all the summer/winter clothing for myself, Jim and the kids, sent 5 garbage bags to rebuilt resources, organized my entire walk in closet, sorted through the playroom purging all the unused toys and reorganized my tupperware drawer; it feels so good! My husband, Jim, and I also decided that we were going to clean out and organize the garage this weekend and we did! It look amazing and we can actually both park our cars in there. Since moving into our new home last winter our garage has been the go to place for junk and other unwanted parafinalia. Now it is neat and organized!

In the same way I like to organize my physical surroundings I also feel the urgency to organize matters in my heart. I love how my children end up teaching me life’s most valuable lessons;) And thankfully my son Judah was the teacher this weekend:) While Jim and I were our organizing the Lord showed us an incredible picture of the importance of unloading and organizing our hearts and the things in life that weigh us down! My son Judah kept yelling at Jim to come to the ditch infront of our house because he wanted to tell him something. Jim was trying to clean out the garage and he couldn’t keep running back and forth so he told Judah to come and talk to him in the garage. Judah explained that he couldn’t come over, he kept yelling “daddy come here I want to talk to you”. (We didnt realize it but Judah had taken a large bucket out of the garage and was filling it up with his favorite rocks in the ditch. Many of these rocks were large and really heavy but he “loved” each one. Judah couldn’t move the bucket of rocks so we wanted Jim to come to him). Judah finally told Jim that he had a bucket full of rocks and they were too heavy to move so he couldn’t come talk in the garage. Jim encouraged Judah to get rid of some of the rocks or leave them and come and talk to him but Judah refused. He wanted to bring them. He continued to whine and complain that his bucket was too heavy to carry. He was frustrated and the whole neighbourhood knew it. Jim continued to encourage him again to leave the rocks but Judah wouldn’t he wanted to bring them. This carried on for a while until Judah finally dumped the bucket and came to talk to Jim.

Does this sound familiar to any of you? Is your bucket full of rocks? Have you ever tried to hold onto something or carry something that you were not strong enough to carry? Do you get frustrated and complain when you know there are areas in your life that you need to “leave behind”?  I’ll be the first to admit that there are times I find myself struggling to get to the Father because I refuse to leave my sin behind. I whine and complain that God won’t meet me but it’s because I refuse to move. Just like Judah was so determined to hold onto his rocks I am so determined to hold onto my sin. I make up excuses for my sin trying to justify them. I can’t leave behind the “rock” of anger because then I won’t feel justified, or the “rock” of comparison or bitterness, hatred or pride, performance, envy, jealously, idolatry…you get the idea. We try to explain how much we love these “rocks” and we may even dress them up to look so nice. (See picture above – Judah’s pet rock, orginally named: “rocky”!). Regardless, we all carry around these heavy rocks and when the Father asks us to leave them and we refuse. We get frustrated and begin to grumble and complain, much like the Israellites. We need to realize that we were not meant to carry these “rocks”! We need to let them go. Are there some “rocks” that you may be carrying around that God wants you to leave so that you can get closer to him? He says in his word that if we draw near to Him, he will draw near to us, James 4:8. So I encourage you to leave them, empty your bucket and move forward, it’s worth it!

May you experience the fullness of a close relationship with him, free from any “rocks” that are weigh you down!