Cleaning up closets and words

You’ve heard me say this here before: I don’t like to make New Year’s resolutions. Some may use the “name it, claim it” mentality of “If I say my goal is to exercise for an hour every day, then I will do it,” but I don’t buy it. I can tell myself I’ll take 20 minutes a day to tackle the closets in my house, but that doesn’t mean it’ll actually happen. And a little reminder taped to my bathroom mirror probably won’t make me do it either. 

I have friends who’ve done this fancy Japanese decluttering system. I think it has something to do with removing everything from your house that doesn’t give you joy. I’ve heard people say after the decluttering process, they were able to lose weight, get along better with their spouses (or realize they wanted to divorce them) and increase sales at work. 

All from cleaning out your house? I understand that my closets are a problem — we have things on the top shelves that I stuck there 11 years ago when we moved into the house, intending to get to it at a later time, but never did. I don’t even know what those things are, just that they’re up there, waiting for me to find them and throw them out! But I don’t think cleaning them out is going to turn my life around and make everything perfect. 

Even thinking about those closets makes me feel jittery, so I just pretend I’m Scarlett O’Hara and say, “I’ll think about that tomorrow.” Instead, I’m working on words — the ones I use and how I teach the girls about the ones they use. I’ve been trying to remind them of how we have the power to encourage people and build them up by choosing our words carefully.

The Bible talks about using a bit in the mouth of a horse to turn the whole animal and using small rudders to steer large ships. “Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.” If our words are like sparks, we can choose whether to start a fire with our words — sowing arguments, anger, jealousy, hurt — or we can use our words to sow peace and harmony and understanding. In this new year with so much political change and uncertainty ahead, more than ever we all need to hear words of encouragement and peace.

Months ago, Kate came home from school saying someone on the playground had called her a name and made her feel bad. We talked about how she felt and why kids sometimes say mean things. I told her one thing she could do was to turn around and make someone else feel included. When a Bible verse is quoted so much it has a name, like “The Golden Rule,” it can sound trite, but I’ve been using this one lately with Kate and Sela. I think the idea of treating other people the way they want to be treated makes sense to kids. And the way we treat people — whether child or adult — often starts with the words we use. 

As is usually the case, when I’m working to teach something to my daughters, I’m teaching it to myself, too. I’m a pro at overreacting, and I always cringe when I say things in front of them that I wouldn’t have said if I’d given myself a second to think first. When things get hairy at home — they’re arguing; I burn dinner; someone knocks over the basket of folded clothes — I find that if I can speak calmly and quietly, fires go out a lot quicker than if I overreact or get angry. Using those gentle, quiet words gets the girls’ attention and honestly, it calms my spirit, too. And trust me, the house works a lot better if Mama’s spirit is calm.

One of these days — hopefully soon — I will tackle our closets. Maybe it’ll change my life; maybe it won’t. But I have a feeling that changing the words we use in our house and in our life will go further toward spreading peace and joy than tackling those dust bunnies and mysterious boxes filling the top shelves of our closets.

I’d love to connect! You can email me at Lauren@LaurenKDenton.com, visit my website LaurenKDenton.com, or find me on Instagram @LaurenKDentonBooks, on Twitter @LaurenKDenton, or on Facebook. My first novel, THE HIDEAWAY, releases April 11, 2017, and is available for pre-order from Amazon.