Swedish Death Cleaning

What started out as moving our storage unit into a cheaper one, somehow became “Swedish Death Cleaning”.

For the uninitiated, “Swedish Death Cleaning” is a real thing!  It’s the Swedish tradition of sorting, decluttering and downsizing your belongings. The idea is to go through your things and get rid of stuff now so your kids, or loved ones you leave behind, won’t have to deal with it later. For some, it’s a way of confronting their mortality and preparing for death (hence the name). But many are doing this at any age and it’s a phenomenon that has been gaining popularity in the U.S. as well.  By the way, the picture above is not my stuff. Mine was much worse.

And so it began…Opening each box and picking up each item, deciding whether to keep it, donate it, or toss it. Some of those decisions were easy, others more difficult.  Sorting through all of the old photos, kids stuff, notes, and memorabilia was fun and we had a lot of laughs. “Hey look! my old Letterman’s jacket still fits!” (well, sort of). “Woah! Look at this picture. Star Wars? What were we thinking?” Going through it, we did find a few treasures and were reminded of God’s faithfulness through the years. But we also found that we had accumulated a bunch of “stuff” that we didn’t even know we had, much less want or need. It took a couple of days and it was exhausting, but in the end, we got rid of the junk and tossing it out was truly liberating. Like a weight had been lifted off us. Then we wondered, Why did we wait this long to deal with it?

Now, I’m not suggesting that you immediately run out and devastate your storage unit, or garage (although, I’m not, not suggesting that either). But what I am trying to say is this:  What if we applied Swedish Death Cleaning, this same method of decluttering, cleaning, and tossing out the unwanted and unnecessary, to our hearts? You know, instead of pushing it down and locking it away because we “just can’t deal with it right now”.  What if we were really honest with ourselves, opened up and looked in there to see what we’ve been accumulating? Things like unforgiveness, bitterness, grudges, hurts? Toss it out! Why hold on to it? Bad habits? Sin you’ve been hiding away? Repent and get it out of there!  Respect to the Swedes, but actually, this has been God’s idea all along.  The Bible tells us in Hebrews 12:1 “…let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares…”  In other words, toss it out, get rid of it!  

When we are no longer encumbered by all this ”junk” in our hearts and lives, we will not only be prepared to die, but will be prepared to fully live in the way God intended – free of the burden of sin and guilt, free to love Him and others as He has loved us.  

“Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, And revive me in Your way.” Psalm 119:37 NKJV

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Mike and Lorie Ramsey