Ascension Refresh Service

What do we think of when we hear the word “hope?” How do we tend to use the word “hope?” Throughout my many years working with Youth, I have heard this word used in prayers all the time. “Dear God, I hope my soccer team wins the tournament on Saturday.” “Dear God, I hope the homeless people are able to find shelter tonight from the elements.” “Dear God, I hope I do well on this exam.” (As a side note, this last one is my personal favorite. When I was in Youth Group and someone asked for this as a prayer request, my dad would tell them that what he would pray for them is that the score on their exam would accurately reflect the amount of effort they put into preparing for it. This was not a popular response, but I liked it so much that Chad and I started using it when we worked in Youth Ministry ourselves.) “Dear God, I hope my uncle’s cancer is healed.” “Dear God, I hope we have a good time on the mission trip.”

I’m not sure what you hear when I give these examples, but all of these used to grate on me when I would hear them. Why are we praying to God that we hope something is going to happen? Doesn’t that mean we have no reason to expect that God will answer us and are only asking for an outcome that we wish would occur? Ignoring the fact that praying for a win at the soccer tournament is a lot like praying to do well on an exam, I felt it was wrong to pray that we “hoped” God would do a particular thing. We don’t need to wish God to do anything. He’s God! I even corrected some students on this and felt like I was teaching them something valuable about prayer.

Then I started thinking about the word “hope.” Did you know “hope” has different meanings? Dictionary.com has two meanings broken down into nouns and verbs with or without objects, which can sound very confusing but goes something like this:

One:

·         the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best

·         to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence.

·         to believe, desire, or trust

·         to feel that something desired may happen

Two:

·         Archaic. to place trust; rely (usually followed by in).

·         a person or thing in which expectations are centered

The Holman Bible Dictionary has a whole page on what the word "hope" means to Christians. It says, "…trustful expectation, particularly with reference to the fulfillment of God's promises. Biblical hope is the anticipation of a favorable outcome under God's guidance. More specifically, hope is the confidence that what God has done for us in the past guarantees our participation in what God will do in the future. This contrasts to the world's definition of hope as 'a feeling that what is wanted will happen.'"

Hoping something does not just mean that we wish it to be true without truly believing it is. We can have hope in something that we know to be true and that we know will come about at some point. This is why we say, “Our hope is in the Lord.” When we say this we don’t mean we wishfully anticipate that maybe God will be our Lord and Savior if he’s able to do it for us or if we’re lucky. We mean that we know the Lord has saved us and has something better planned for us with him for all eternity. It is the one thing we can be absolutely sure of and that will never be in doubt. When we say, “Our hope is in the Lord,” we are saying that He is the one and only anchoring thing in our lives that we can completely count on to never fail us.

So, I have realized I was wrong. Some of the prayers I mentioned earlier are not the best because of other reasons, but in terms of using the word “hope” they are fully within the scope of an appropriate way to approach God. We should be praying with the hope that the all-powerful God of the universe is fully able and willing to heal the sick, bring about the result that he desires, and create spaces for us to build community with Him and each other.

And that, my friends, brings me to the topic of Ascension. John says that Jesus told his disciples during the Last Supper that he was going to prepare a place for them when he returned to heaven.

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." John 14:1-3

He was going to prepare their rooms in his father’s house so that they would be ready for them when they finally went to be with him. We just completed a very visual exercise that helped us think about what makes us feel at home and what home means to us. For some people, it is the structure itself, for others it is a smell or sound. For many, it is hard to define what makes them feel at home, they just know that when they walk through those doors, they immediately feel safe and at peace. We all have very different things that make “home” for us, and yet, we ALL have something that we identify with home.

My in-laws live in Southern California. The weather is always perfect, the grass is always green and perfectly manicured, and the ocean is just a few miles away, if that. Their house is big, beautiful, and spotless with coordinating decorations, lots of food in the fridge and the pantry, and lots of room for all of us to spread out. They even have authentic L. L. Bean Adirondack Chairs (with footrests!) in the backyard surrounded by roses and other flowering plants. It is pretty much as close to paradise as you could hope to get without being on an undiscovered tropical island that somehow also has running water and no bugs.

I love my husband’s family. They are fun to be around, and we always have lots of unique adventures. And yet, when I get out of the car after a full day of traveling across the country in a plane with at least one layover and terrible Springfield traffic and open the door to my small rental house painted in weird colors with 5 different types of flooring just in the living/dining room area that still smells a little bit like skunk when it is shut up for a week and didn’t get very clean before I left, do you know how I feel? I open the door, step over the threshold, take a deep breath, and sigh in contentment. Why is that? My house is nothing compared to where I just came from in any way. In fact, it’s probably the complete opposite. And yet, my soul is at rest when I’m in my own house. I have come home.

Now, I’m guessing we could go around the room and hear a similar story from every single one of you. The details will be different, of course, and it may be a different type of space for you, but we all have something in our lives that creates that sense of true belonging where our soul can truly be at rest. Think about that for a moment and then consider this: Whatever you have just been thinking of is a cheap, distorted version of the place Jesus is preparing for you right now. He is personally overseeing the creation of your eternal place in heaven, the place that will actually rest your soul in the fullest way possible and that will fulfill all your deepest longings for a true home. And the best part is that he will be there bodily with us.

What must it have been like for Jesus to go home to his Father? My mom gets really excited when she thinks about this part. We all should! Here we have the true King of Heaven doing what is obviously beneath his station by being born a human baby on Earth and then dying in the worst way possible after getting no credit for who he is with the World. I mean, I’m continually grossed out by my human body and I’m supposed to be a human. It’s too embarrassing for words that the Lord of the Universe had to deal with a body like mine. And the times he came to weren’t exactly the cleanest and most sanitary. No toilet paper, no running water, no body wash. The roads weren’t paved, he didn’t have an air-conditioned car (or a car period), and he didn’t even have hiking boots. No, thank you! Add all of that in with the fact that he was away from home for three decades, and you can imagine how much he must have missed home!

Now, he had a family here on earth that loved him dearly, and he had a familiar place that belonged to them that was his also. He had friends that followed him everywhere, with whom he could be comfortable and share meals with. While his time here may not have been as much of a paradise as going to my in-laws’ house can be, it is like having an extended visit with them. As I’ve already told you, no matter how long I am at my in-laws’ house, I still feel most at home when I walk through my own front door.

If I like coming home to my rental that much, can you imagine Jesus finally going home to be with his Father? He went back to HEAVEN, back to his PERFECT place that is his HOME. What a sigh of relief he must have felt! He returned to his place, where he belongs, where he is most fit to be, and where he rightfully should be.

There are so many cool things to think about here! I don’t have time to explore them all with you so I’ll reign it in a little bit. Don’t forget that when Jesus went up into heaven, he went up with his body. He didn’t just dissolve into sparkles like pixie dust and get blown into the clouds. He didn’t get “beamed up” and kind of go all shimmery and then just disappear. The account says he was lifted up into the clouds, which makes me think of when Elijah was taken into heaven without dying. This means that he is currently in heaven preparing our eternal homes and he still has his body. He gets to literally sit at the right hand of God and do the work of the King. I picture him pacing around in front of God the Father continually interceding for us. And not just interceding once the same day he went up. He is presently working for our good and will continue to do so until he comes again. (Then, of course, he won’t have to anymore because we’ll be brought back to heaven to live with him.)

A quick point here: When Jesus returns and brings us back with him to the place he has prepared for us that will be the most perfect version of home for us that we could never imagine, we will not miss the things here that made it home for us. Our new home will be so perfect that we will wonder how we ever found rest for our souls in any earthly home. If you think about it, what makes us feel at home on earth is sort of a hint of what awaits us in heaven. It is the smallest glimmer of what we have to hope for.

Which brings me back to hope. Ascension is all about hope. Not the wishing kind of hope that may or may not come true but we really really want it to. I’m talking about the hope that we have because we know without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus died for us, rose from the dead, and returned to heaven to prepare it for when he comes back for us. It is the kind of hope that we already know the outcome and can assume that the promises for the future are true. We can anchor our faith in these truths and rely on them above all else. The Ascension of Jesus points us toward our true and everlasting hope.

Control Freak

Why is being in control so important to me? How do I give up control of my life to God and actually let him take it? Did I really take a first step in doing this with the mom-purse Lenten discipline experiment? Now that Lent is officially over, these are the questions I'm left with. I have come to some conclusions during the last season and have also realized that this is just the beginning of the journey. There is still so much more to think and pray about.

1. I was using my mom-purse as a substitute for God. Many aspects of God in my life could be (and were!) replaced by my giant bag of awesome stuff. These include the security that God promises me, my identity in him, God being the most important thing in my life, trusting God with my life in general, and relying on myself to help fulfill the needs of others. I was guilty of idolatry, gluttony, pride, considering myself better than God, and faithlessness. These are only a few of the words I could use to describe myself. Now, does God see me as a lost cause because I treated my purse as greater than him? Nope, he actually still loves me and has cared enough to help me see where I have gone wrong so I can come back to where I belong in his family.

2. God wants me to be his. I would tell you that I have been God's child from a very early age and that I haven't looked back, but that would pretty much be a lie. I did give my heart to God when I was very young, and I have been on a journey to live my life for him ever since, but regretably, I have stumbled and faltered and needed to be kicked in the pants here and there to get back on the path God has laid out for me. It is not for my own self-help that this purse experiment was important. I have not been doing what God wants me to do, and he is saddened when I try to rebel against him and do my own thing and think that I am amazing apart from him. He wants me for his own and doesn't want to share me with anyone or anything. There is a reason he is described as a jealous God in the Ten Commandments.

3. I am a child of God. I don't need to be super cool in the eyes of my coworkers or be the picture of awesomeness to strangers or be a world-renowned superstar because none of that matters. What matters is that God has claimed me for his own and has promised to do great things in me through him. I can bask in the love that he pours out on me and be content wherever he has me because he is really all that matters. Knowing this and putting it into action are two different things, and I would like to think that I have finally come to terms with the fact that I finally know this to be true. Next will come the hard part of constantly reminding myself that I do know it's true and continuing to be happy finding my identity in God. I am a fickle person. I have trouble sticking it out even when I know it's the best thing for me, and I know this will be very hard to do. It is super freeing to have finally figured it out in my brain though, and I feel like it's a good place to start.

4. I can't control any part of my life. No matter how hard I try, I will never be in control of my life. I'm not even in control of my body, and I'm intimately aware of it at all times. If I can't tell my body what to do, how can I expect to be able to control anything else in my life in a legitimate way? Not being in control of how things work out for me has always been the biggest hurdle for me on my way to God. I crave knowing what is going to happen and planning out each step so that I won't ever be surprised or hurt or sad or disappointed. I like to say that God is throwing me curveballs when something unexpected or bad happens, but the reality is that God isn't trying to mess me up just for the fun of it or to teach me a lesson. It was probably what he had planned all along and I was just too self-absorbed to wait patiently for it. It was unexpected for me because I refused to be ready for whatever he had planned and insisted on being ready for what I had planned.  If you are never looking for something, it will always be a surprise. I wasn't looking for God's plan because I was too focused on my own plan. And let me tell you, my plan always gets messed up. God is much better at charting the course of my life than I could ever be.

Throughout my Lenten discipline this year, lots of things came to me about what I need to continue working on in my relationship with God. Most of them relate back to this issue of control for me in one way or another, which means I have only scratched the surface of my identity as a control freak. Don't worry, just because Lent is over doesn't mean I have completed my discipline. I'm going to continue exploring my major issues and hopefully make some real progress, with God's help.

Identity Crisis

I have faced my mom-purse head on and have delved deep into my feelings of false security and my trust (or lack thereof) in God. I have purged my false idols and security blankets from my purse and felt the freedom of not having all the answers. Now, I am faced with an issue I did not anticipate: who am I without my mom-purse?

Now, I don't claim to have solved my issues, but I have made some significant headway and come to some good conclusions (conclusions will be laid out in a future post). Along the way, I have come to realize that a lot of who I think I am is wrapped up in this notion of the mom-purse and what it makes me into. I have been calling myself an uber boy scout but secretly in the wildly fantastic recesses of my imagination, I had considered myself somewhat of a superhero. I know that people consider mothers superheroes because we give birth and we juggle so many things and we're awesome, blah, blah, blah, but in general in my life I am not particularly extraordinary. I'm good at lots of things and don't excel at anything. My job is somewhat interesting, but it really doesn't require much prowess to go to work every day and be judged on how close you are to a particular number goal and then get yelled at for not meeting it, even when you are actually above said goal. Waking up every morning doesn't really earn you a gold star in accomplishing life, and while I was a good student, I wasn't at the top of anything. I have always enjoyed playing sports, and while I had a lot of fun, I was never the all-star athlete, and I could never now be at the level I used to be at. I consider myself a highly accomplished middle-roader, which is just fine to be unless you've always dreamed of being a superhero.

A superhero does not have to be someone that dresses up in spandex (ew!) and flies around the city saving babies from terrible villains intent on destroying the world. My brand of superhero is the type of person that makes a difference to those around them in significant ways and is often imitated but never replaced. A superhero is singularly unique individual that you cannot help but be drawn to and want to be around all the time because they are totally awesome! And, of course, every superhero must have an array of gadgets and supplies with which to fight whatever is thrown at them and those around them.

Aha, now you are starting to see why my mom-purse was so important to me. If I were ever going to be a superhero, I was going to be one whose problem-fighting abilities knows no bounds. Kid got a runny nose? Wham! Here's a tissue from my magic bag. Heartburn? I will not only diagnose you, I will also have the means to make you better. Dog nose spot on your glasses? Never fear, Mom-Purse Mom is here...with a special little cloth that will not only clean those glasses, it won't leave lint or smudges and will never scratch the lenses. Can you see how tempting it sounds to be Mom-Purse Mom?

My purse was my identity because I felt like it made me into a superhero. More than that, I felt like it made me different, someone that stood out and had a special purpose. It made me feel special and needed. I have already talked about how I used my giant purse to help me feel secure and basically replaced God with it, and I have realized that I did the same thing on another level: I used my purse to give myself an identity when all I had to do was be content with the identity God had given me.

Easier said than done, right? We learn in Sunday School that the best thing about us is that we have been made in God's image and that we are his children, and that should be enough for us. But how many of us are actually genuinely able to legitimately see that, not to mention really put it into practice? I thought my biggest problem in my faith walk was that I didn't trust God enough to take care of me, and now I realize I haven't even been identifying myself as one of his own. That is a severely crushing blow to a wannabe superhero. 

The cool thing is that through my quest to be a superhero in the eyes of the world, I have completely ignored the fact that I am already a superhero in my own life because of who I am in Christ. All those attributes I listed earlier as being the signs of a superhero, well, guess what? Since I have Christ in me I actually embody all of those and more. He is the one that is the ultimate superhero, and I get to shine his awesomeness out into the world so that others can bask in his greatness. I wanted to be a superhero to this world, and until I cleared away all the clutter, I couldn't see that the superhero of the universe was the one that really matters. 

Does this mean I can be content to be identified as one of God's children and forego any and all recognition or prestige in this world because it ultimately means nothing? That is something I am going to continue to work on, but that I am glad I finally realized is my reality.

The Purge

It has been several weeks since I cleaned out my purse and this is what I have been left with. It is a much smaller collection of useful items than what I started with, and I am super proud of myself for paring my life down to this size. The process started with me dumping the entire contents of my mom-purse out on the ottoman and staring at it in wonder and embarrassment. I went through each and every item individually, considering how I thought it was useful and how it had been since I had actually used it. I found quite a bit of trash, which was easy to get rid of because, well, it was trash. I discovered I had more than 3 chapsticks and several lip glosses on top of those so I just had to choose the one I liked the best and stored the others away in my make-up bag. I also had at least three lotions, of which I really only used one, so I put the others in my bedside table.

There were tissues and phone chargers and work badges and bills and notepads and lots of writing utensils. I decided to create a pouch only for work that I can keep my work phone, charger, badges, keys, and miscellaneous passwords and business cards in that I only keep in my purse during the work day. I can take it out and leave it on my desk for the next day and still have everything in one place without cluttering up my regular life. I agonized over the bandaid situation because I find that I need them quite often, as do my children, and in the end I decided to update the collection to more useful sizes and shapes and keep them in the purse. I put all but one pen back in the desk drawer, tore out the used pages in my notepad, and only kept one of the notepads in circulation. I figured once the winter is over for good, I will not need the tissues anymore, so those are being kept temporarily. Certain medications are always needed during the day or taken on a schedule, and I'm sorry, but gum is a very handy thing to have so as not to offend anybody you are doing business with after lunch.

All in all, it was a successful sorting of the mom-purse. I can tell it was a successful sorting because I have kept the same amount of stuff out of the bag ever since I cleaned it out. This tells me I never really needed all of it in the first place. I have even been able to objectively go through it all and further eliminate items that at first I thought I really needed but then realized I didn't.

My proudest moment came about a week after the initial purging when Chad asked me if he could borrow my nail file and I said I didn't have one. This has happened several times, and each time it actually has not killed me to not have the item a person is requesting. It is so freeing to actually say no and not provide a solution to someone else's non-emergency. It's not that I don't care, and I'm still struggling with not being the one that has all the answers to everyone's every need, but it is encouraging to myself that my Lenten journey actually yielded some results.

I have since switched to a smaller purse altogether, one that cannot possibly hold all the stuff my former one used to. It is lighter and fits better in the center console of the car while I'm driving, and I have not smacked one person with it and made them almost fall over. I'm happy to not be such a large presence in the aisles of a store anymore.

If I have put my trust in gold...

I have a magnet on my fridge that says "his eye is on the sparrow." It is one of those metal phrase magnets that you can buy at Christian book stores, and it spans the entire width of the refridgerator. I bought it last year during a particularly difficult time for me where I was having a lot of trouble figuring out how to trust God to take care of me. It made me think of the teaching in Matthew 6:25-34 and of the "birds of the air" that are taken care of by our Heavenly Father, and they do not worry about where their next meal or shelter will come from. Jesus makes the point that if God cares so much about the birds, who are just animals, why wouldn't we expect him to take care of us even better? I like the way this passage is written in the Message:

25 "If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. 

26 Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds. 

27 "Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? 

28 All this time and money wasted on fashion - do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, 

29 but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. 

30 "If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers - most of which are never even seen - don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? 

31What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. 

32 People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. 

33 Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

34 "Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. 

Matthew 6:25-34 (check it out in the NIV as well, both are quite good and slightly different)

Now, this is a pretty long passage but I couldn't really trim it down at all without losing a lot of the important stuff. There is also a lot to unpack here, and what I am really focusing on now is verses 32-34. In regards to my mom-purse, am I truly giving "my entire attention to what God is doing right now" and not getting "worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow?" Am I trusting God to help me "deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes?"

My answer would have to be a resounding NO. Being an uber Boy Scout means I am relying on myself to provide for my needs and the needs of those around me. I am not trusting that God has my best interest in mind, and I am not trusting that he can and will take care of me. I'm not even trusting that he knows what my needs are. Once again, I know best and God can take a few lessons from me. Just before this passage in Matthew, there is another verse, Matthew 6:21, which says, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (NIV) How can I call myself a Christian when I am putting all my faith and hope in my purse to supply my needs? It has become my treasure, and my heart cannot wholeheartedly be in two places at once. If my treasure is my purse, my heart finds its purpose in my purse. That may be one of the saddest sentences I have ever written or said.

So, what is the purpose of the magnet on my fridge? It is supposed to remind me that what Psalm 91 says is true. "'Because he loves me,' says the Lord, 'I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.'" (Psalm 91:14-16) If I love God and trust him to take care of me, he will do that and more. I want to be one that "dwells in the shelter of the Most High" and "will rest in the shadow of the Almighty." (vs 1) I want to say, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." (vs 2) When I got the magnet, I had come to a point in my life where on a larger, philosophical level I was able to actually put more trust in God. I thought I had come a long way until I started realizing that my mom-purse problem meant I still had a long way to go. Now, the magnet is taking on a different meaning for me. It says to me, "Do the sparrows depend on your purse for survival or does God take care of their every need without it? If they can do it, why can't you?"

Uber Boy Scout

When I think back on my life, I can see this tendency to never leave the house unprepared throughout my school years. It really came to a head when I had my first kid, though. The diaper bag was a new wonderland of possibility with all its pockets and zippers, compartments and detachable gear. It had a place for everything a parent would need to make sure they were prepared in any emergency, and I had plenty of emergencies. As the kids grew larger, and the need for a diaper bag became less, they still had emergency needs that needed to be prepared for. This is really when the mom-purse came into play for me.

I was already used to toting large bags around with me everywhere, and since I no longer had to deal with the strollers and diapers, it felt like a much lighter burden to only have the one purse. Now, it would have made sense to stop expecting there to be so many possible emergencies, but I was hooked on having whatever I or anyone might need for themselves or their children within reach inside my gigantic, multi-compartment, zippers-for-days, well-organized mom-purse. I mean, how cool was I that if your kid needed a snack I could pull one out of my magic bag and make everything better? And what about all those first aid needs? Come see me! What if you have a splinter? Feel free to use my tweezers! Hands cracked and dry? I've got several options in lotion available in case you have a preference. Phone out of juice? What type of charger do you need because I've got two basic ones! And external chargers just in case there are no well sockets.

I could go on and on, but I won't because I'm pretty sure you get the picture. I'm like a doomsday prepper for everyday life. I heard a news story once about airplane crashes where some scientific group had studied who survives and who doesn't survive all types of crashes. They found that the people who were most likely to survive were the ones that took the time to consider where the exits are and played out several scenarios where they would need to take action in their minds before the plane even took off. Since these people already had an idea of what they would do in certain situations, they were much more likely to actually take those actions when the scenarios became real-life emergencies. They were not frozen in fear, rather they acted and that action ended up saving their lives.

I can identify with those people. I can say very confidently that I would not only survive a plane crash, I would be able to survive any disaster I may find myself in. While this is a good quality to have, it begs the question: what is it about daily life that qualifies as a disaster I must survive? Because that's how I'm treating it with my bag full of remedies for any eventuality. I have tried to slim down in the past, and have suffered such anxiety over what might happen if I find myself without something "important" that I ended up adding more and more just in case.

The biggest thing I have always had to work on in my relationship with God/Christ/Holy Spirit is trusting him to take care of me and relying on him to guide my life. While I have made great strides in some areas, my mom-purse is the last major hold-out that is holding me back. I recognize that I have been putting all my faith in my purse to provide whatever I need at the moment, and I have been relying on myself to make sure the purse is ready at all times to provide for me. It is all about me and God is nowhere to be seen. I want to change this! My mom-purse is a sad replacement for the true care God is offering me and has proven he gives me.

In the next post, I will have some verses to share in this theme.

This is disgusting...and kind of awesome.

Hi, my name is Beth, and I have a mom-purse.

The other day, I emptied out my purse onto my desk at work to see exactly what kind of monster I had created. I took everything out of each of the separate bags within a bag (except for the contents of my wallet) and assembled them together to make something that very closely resembles a hidden object picture. How many different things can you find? 

The result made me feel both pride and disgust. I was proud that I carry around with me the equivalent of an uber Boy Scout, prepared to assist with any need that may arise. I was digusted that I felt like I couldn't do without any of these things. I also could not believe how many things were actually in my bag. I like to think that I don't like to be cluttered up with stuff in general, but looking at this picture, I feel like I have been lying to myself about that. It makes me feel like an imposter. 

What could I possibly need with so much stuff? Is it all important? Why do I need it with me all the time? What does it say about me that I draw security from having all of this stuff with me whenever I go? Has this mom-purse become for my an idol that replaces God in where I draw my security from? Who and what do I ultimately rely on?