Women’s Wednesday–“Get it Together!” (Part 1)

The weather’s getting warmer and my heavy maternity sweaters are getting to be a little too much. But, knowing that I only have 8 more weeks till baby gets here, I am determined not to spend a lot on maternity spring clothing. So, yesterday I decided to go to a thrift store to do a little bargain shopping.

I walked into the thrift store expecting to see what I had seen in all the other thrift stores I had ever visited -- racks of clothing divided by type (summer, blouses, sweaters, etc.) then further divided by size. But guess what? They were all mixed in together! Even the sizes! This store had racks and racks of ladies clothes, so sorting through a mile of shirts not knowing if the next I would look at would be a small or 3x was enough to discourage me. So, I left – hands empty.

This little experience shopping in the unorganized thrift store left me thinking about how easy it is for our lives – all aspects! – to become disarrayed leaving us discouraged, throwing our hands up in the air and accomplishing little or nothing that we set out to do.

Imagine you were in charge of sorting all of the clothes in that thrift store by type and size. Where would you start? I challenge you to give this question some serious thought as organization principles are similar whether we’re speaking of our homes, our lives, or thrift stores.

1) Identify the “big stuff”. As organizer of the thrift store, perhaps you would identify the most profitable items that were all jumbled in with the small stuff, pulling aside best designer brands, highest quality clothing, and high ticket items such as dresses and coats.

Similarly, ID the “big stuff” in your life. God should be in this list! Perhaps you also have friends, family, and cleaning in your “big stuff”. Know what your most important items are!

2) Put the “big stuff” first. Doesn’t it make sense that the thrift store would feature the most profitable items in a prominent display in the store? Similarly, we should place importance on the “big stuff”

In next week’s article I’m going to go through how to do this step by step, helping you to identify goals and put an action plan in place. Right now, I just want you to remember that if you put the “big stuff” first, the little things will fit in much easier. If you fill your cup with all the little things first and then try to cram in the big stuff, some of your most important things may not fit!

Take a look at this illustration:

In the drawing on the left (above), I placed all of my little items first and then tried to fit the big items. But, look! One of the big ones didn’t completely fit!

In the drawing on the right (above) I placed the big items first and then all of the little items (yes, the same number and size as drawing one) fit with room leftover!

While self-help gurus may think that they came up with this idea of putting the ‘big stuff’ first. They weren’t the first to espouse such ideas! Jesus tells us to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” (that’s putting BIG STUFF first) and then “all these things shall be added to you”. [Matthew 6:33]

3) Sort through what’s left. After pulling aside the most important items in our thrift store, the organizer should then start sorting what’s left – by size, by material, etc. – perhaps even throwing things away!

Take a look at your life and ask yourself if all of the small things in your life fit and if they don’t, take stock and decide to cut back. Oh yes, this means you may have to start saying “no” when something interferes with God, family, or your other “big stuff”!

Still not quite sure how to get it together?

My challenge for you this week is to just contemplate on the idea of ‘big things’ versus ‘little things’ in your life and then next week, I’ll hold your hand as we come up with a game plan for how to help you accomplish everything (or at least most everything) you always wanted to accomplish, as we ‘get it together’!

~Martha Howell