Everything, Plus the Kitchen Sink

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Wednesday, 02 June 2010 16:04

When we got back to Krasnodar this time, we had a Great Plan in place for selling off our household stuff. It involved carefully timed and orchestrated advertisements placed with local churches, especially the big Baptist church “where all the money is,” as we were told; we would tell certain people who know certain people in the market for large items of furniture; we would announce it in the business community, where the more well-off people have money to burn... But we never got a chance to do that. No sooner had I gone through the house and made a list of items for sale, and no sooner had we listed our car on the internet… when Garage Sale Fever hit Krasnodar with a vengeance.

Within 24 hours, someone bought the car and people, who had heard from some mysterious source that we were selling things, started to roll in. That first day, we sold ¼ of our entire household. Now, a week into it, we have only half a dozen pieces of furniture left and a table full of small items, priced garage sale-style, which the Russians seem to love. And that’s it. To think that nearly 3 years of accumulated possessions can be disposed of in a week’s time….it sort of makes my head spin. 

People keep asking me, “Don’t you hate to see strangers sorting through your stuff; isn’t it hard to let everything go?” The answer is not really. I feel very detached from it all. For one thing, it really is all stuff we’ve acquired since we arrived in Russia, therefore there isn’t a lot of sentiment attached to any of it. It’s not Great-Aunt Sophie’s coffee table that her father made out of carefully hoarded driftwood during The Great Depression… it’s just an Ikea coffee table. For another thing, it’s really just…stuff. As one of our friends always says, “It’s all going to burn up in the end anyway.” 

That’s not to say that I don’t value material things: of course I do. There are certain treasures I am not going to leave behind, I don’t care how much the airline charges us for extra baggage.  But one of the priceless lessons I’ve learned so far on this journey is that money and possessions are nothing more than tools that God lends you for awhile, so you can get the job done. When we moved here, and needed a clothes washer, God said, “OK, here’s a clothes washer. And here are some dishes, because I know you’re going to need to eat at some point. And since I love you, I picked out beautiful plates in a pattern I knew you’d especially like.” He did that with everything we have, but from the beginning, I’ve always had a sense that none of this stuff, this metal and plastic and wire and glass, was meant for us to get possessive about. It’s just been on loan, so we could get the work done here. And now it’s time to give it back, and that’s okay because wherever we end up next, God is going to do just exactly the same thing. He always has. Not being tied up in all your stuff is very freeing. I highly recommend it to anyone. 

Meanwhile, if you know anyone who’s looking to buy a kitchen sink, I can find you a good deal. But you’d better move fast: at this rate, it’s likely to be here today, gone tomorrow.