The New Face of Hoarding

I cherish any moment that I can get out of the house these days, and when it involves driving, I roll the windows down, open the sunroof, and cruise. 

Old lady style. 

As I was trimming bushes on Saturday, I noticed that my clippers needed a sharpen. Which was the perfect excuse to get out of the house and visit with my parents. 

Cody and I cruised our way to Dallas taking in the scenery. We turned down the road that leads to my old high school and I looked right then left at the houses. Everyone was home and people were in the yard. 

I imagine life was much like this in the 50's. There was a house I had passed for years up on the left. It's hard to miss as the house has seemed to vomit it's contents out into the yard. 

You may have noticed these homes on drives as well. Stuff strewn about in the yard. No rhyme. No reason. 
The carport packed. The blinds pulled but smashed against the window, no doubt because of the amount of stuff on the other side. 

The tell-tale sign of a hoarder is when it starts to spill over into the yard. 

But what about our modern day hoarding?

Oh you say, Jennifer I'm not a hoarder. You can still get around my house, I still sleep in my bedroom, and you won't find any decaying food under piles of junk mail. 

That is TV show hoarding. It's real life too, but that's what makes for good TV. 

But what about the garage? The one that you can't park in. 
Or what about the attic? The place where you stuff all the "maybes" and "what ifs". 
Or what about the pantry? Or the second refrigerator loaded up with soda, beer, and white wine?

Our world seems to march to the drum of "big house, less yard" and within that Big House we stuff it full.  More must mean better, we tell ourselves. 

We buy and buy and buy. Shoes and earrings and clothes and anything else fashion influencers shove down our throats. 

We create a library of children's books so that our kids will always have something to read. No matter the fact that they are teenagers now. 

People pass away and we inherit a life's worth of stuff.  Stuff so heavy we can't lift it or depart from it. 

We hoard memories in tangible form because the fear of forgetting them is too great. 

We hold on to furniture for a family member who might one day want it. 

The Bible teaches us much about our love of stuff. 
Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you for when you love the world, you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see and pride in our possessions. 1 John 2: 15-16

In all this owning and possessing, what are we really looking for? Buying and expanding. Complicating and busying.