Letting Go of a Perfectly Curated Life

I unpacked the last box and looked around the living room of the house I’d call home for the next three years. The furniture that had fit just fine in the spacious house we’d come from felt awfully cramped in here. The curtains I’d packed didn’t fit the windows, either. I’d have to buy new ones. And maybe some pretty artwork to hang above the couch? That big, empty wall needed some sort of decorative touch to make it feel more homey, but I couldn’t find anything in my pile of picture frames that looked right, and I didn’t have any inspired ideas. I was beginning to feel discouraged. And now that everything was unloaded off the moving truck, it was time to go around and assess the damage our things had incurred on the four-thousand-mile journey, a process I knew wouldn’t make me feel any better, since each time we move, nearly half our belongings end up scratched and dented. Or moldy. Or lost at sea.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” -Matthew 6:19-21 (ESV)

One of the things that initially attracted me to the military lifestyle was the way frequent moves could help our family become less attached to worldly things. Having to sort through every single item we own every few years and evaluate whether or not it’s worth dragging across the world does help prevent us from accumulating too much earthly treasure, as does the knowledge that some of our things will get damaged each time we move. It is just “stuff,” after all.

Still, we all like to have nice things and a pretty space to invite people into. Many of us long for a beautifully curated life, and I believe God designed us to be bearers and creators of beauty in the world. But it’s not just God’s good design that motivates us to pursue beautiful things. We’re also influenced by Pinterest and Instagram and magazine covers and the cute friend down the street whose house and kids and life always seem so put together. If we’re honest, sometimes we’re motivated by jealousy and discontent and the belief that if we had nicer things we’d be happier. That we’d be worth more.

Jesus told his followers not to worry about adorning themselves or filling their storehouses or building comfortable lives. It seems that the more we surround ourselves with earthly treasure, the harder it is to remember where our worth is found. But our worth does not come from what we own or how Pinterest-worthy our lives are. Our value lies solely in being created, redeemed, and loved by God, a God who can be trusted to provide for our needs in this life but cares even more about our eternal treasure and the condition of our hearts. The people Jesus met who were willing to leave their lives and their belongings behind to follow him found a life that was rich with Kingdom things, along with the promise of eternal reward. Those who couldn’t bring themselves to let go of their possessions? They went away sad. I think we experience a bit of that sadness ourselves when we chase after the next shiny object only to find it doesn’t satisfy. God invites us to stop chasing after pretty things and instead pursue things with a truer kind of beauty. Things that will last.

The television that sits in my new living room has a big crack in the screen. You can’t really see it when it’s turned on, and my frugal husband actually bought it that way. Our reliable old Econoline van has some noticeable rust, too. And while some of the items that have been damaged in our frequent moves have been discarded, others we’ve kept, deciding to live with the imperfections. Sometimes I am tempted to be embarrassed about these items, or even to feel sorry for myself that we don’t have nicer things. We are fortunate enough that we could replace them if we chose to, but I’ve decided that I don’t need a perfectly curated life. There’s nothing wrong with having nice things, of course, and there are some worthwhile reasons to keep a beautiful space. But for me, the cracks and the rust and the scratches and the imperfections serve as visible reminders that what I own says nothing about what I’m worth, and that we are waiting for our eternal home, one filled with beautiful things that will last forever.