Help Me to Unclutter My Life

This was taken from a Woman's Day article... Copyright 1972 by Marjorie Holmes Mighell, and published by Doubleday & Co...  I just thought it a good fit for many mothers (including me on a majority of it), and as a belated celebration of Mother's Day! ;o)

A Woman's Conversations with God
By Marjorie Holmes

Help me to unclutter my life, Lord.

Rescue me from this eternal confusion of belongings (mine and other peoples) that just won't stay orderly. This suffocation of phone calls, clubs and committees. ("No man can serve two masters," you said. A woman is lucky if she has only two!) This choke of bills and papers and magazines and junk mail. I buy too many things, subscribe to too many things, belong to too many things. The result is such confusion I can't really enjoy or do justice to anything!

Deliver me from some of this, Lord. Help me to stop bewailing the clutter and work out some plan for cutting down. Give me the willpower to stop buying things we don't need that only become a chore to take care of. Give me more sales resistance at antique stores and white elephant sales. And give, oh give me the will power to get rid of a lot we already have- to unclutter my cupboards and closets and attic of things hung onto too long.

Oh, Lord, help me to unclutter my life of too many activites. Give me the self-discipline to stop joining things and to weed out the organizations I don't really care about. (They'll be better off without me.) Give me the strength to say "No" more often when the telephone rings.

Lord, show me a way of uncluttering my life even of too many people without being unkind; a way to love and help people without letting them gobble me alive. There are so many dear, wonderful friends I long to see and need to be with for my own soul's growth. Yet we are lost to each other because of this profligate squandring of energy and time. Give me the determination to reclaim these truly life-strengthing friends, at whatever cost to other idle meaningless relationships.

And while I'm at it, Lord, help me to unclutter my mind- of regrets and resentments and anxieties, of idiotic dialogues and foolish broodings. Sweep it clean and free. Make it calm and quiet. Make it orderly. Put me in control of my mind as well as my house... and my calendar... and my harried spirit. Thank you. With your help I know I can triumph. I can unclutter my life.