A Dare to Live Lighter: Making Space for the One who Truly Matters

Our hearts are made not for the things that fade, but for the things that are forever. Not for expendable things, but for the eternal things. How do we detach from our possessions and remember that our deepest wantings aren’t material but are otherworldly? This was the real-life question that faced Julia after her grandmother’s passing shifted the way she viewed her possessions at a heart level. She hopes her story of focusing on what truly matters—the things that never parish or fade—will help you grow closer to the ever-present God. It’s a joy to welcome Julia to the farm’s table today….

Guest Post by Julia Ubbenga

A powerful personal experience finally made my detachment concrete.

One December evening, while sitting in my car outside my favorite coffee shop—the one nestled on the corner of our town square, facade adorned with white globe lights—I had an overwhelming urge to call my grandma.

I was new to these intuition-filled calls to action, but I was noticing them more now that I was focused less on stuff and more on God.

Eager to unload my daughters, sink into my favorite booth, and wrap my hands around a large, café-au-lait-filled mug, I tried to shake the feeling. My fingers grazed the car door’s handle, but the voice telling me to call Grandma became deafening, so I grabbed the phone and dialed. 

The conversation, as always, was soul-filling. I asked her questions about how in the world she managed raising nine kids. She shared a parenting tip, or at least some general encouragement, which I always welcomed. I promised to visit her in the not-too-distant future. She smiled—I could hear it in her voice—and said, “Oh, wouldn’t that be nice. But a phone call is wonderful too.” 

“Remembering death, living with the end in mind, propels us to use the time we have on earth to be less focused on inner and outer clutter and more focused on what truly matters.“

After I had talked for twenty minutes, restless voices from the back seat cued the conversation’s end. Eva requested a turn to talk, and in true five-year-old fashion, she excitedly spoke of the present moment and her long-awaited hot chocolate. Grandma said the call had meant so much and thanked me for it. I told her I loved her. And I told her goodbye.

Five days later, Grandma passed away unexpectedly. Nothing could have prepared us for the timing of her passing, and nothing could have left me more grateful for the evening when I postponed coffee to make that call.

As I placed a long- stemmed red rose on her casket one snowy December day, I was reminded again of the brevity of our time here on earth. I watched my warm breath form a white cloud as I exhaled into the frigid cemetery air. Then I watched it vanish.

Our journey through life is like that—transitory, fleeting, temporary. There is power in this perspective. Remembering death, living with the end in mind, propels us to use the time we have on earth to be less focused on inner and outer clutter and more focused on what truly matters.

The bottom line is this: You can’t take your stuff with you.

And chances are, when you come to the end of your life, you’re not going to wish you had more of it. Moments of connection, beauty, and generosity are the “things” worth collecting as we journey through life.

Saint Francis of Assisi said, “When you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received—­only what you have given.”

“When you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received—­only what you have given.”

Love is what we’ve given, and love is what remains (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Keeping our own mortality in mind naturally shifts our focus away from our stuff. It increases our detachment and our propensity to let go. 

In her book Slow: Simple Living for a Frantic World, Brooke McAlary explains how a simple writing prompt changed her life. The prompt? Write your own three—sentence eulogy. The result? Amazing clarity on what truly matters in life.

In her eulogy, McAlary describes herself as a quick—to-laugh, creative, loyal, spontaneous person; a firm believer that we’re all responsible to leave the world a better place than we found it; and a mom who raised daughters with both “roots and wings.”

“I looked at my kids and husband and tried to imagine no longer being with them,” McAlary writes. “The thought was painful, and I felt guilty. But what I also realized as I struggled to get the words on paper is that a eulogy doesn’t leave any room for the unimportant things. The stuff we own, social media statistics, work success, having a nice home—I discovered that none of it really mattered.”

“I wasn’t scared of death, I was scared of leaving too much of my life unlived. I was terrified of having a legacy of tedious existence—­being known for doing, amassing, and striving, but never really living.“

“The truth is none of us has any idea what the future holds,” she continues. “I (now) knew what the most important, eulogy—worthy parts of my life were—­family, adventure, having a positive impact in the world—­I realized I wasn’t living that life.”

While I wasn’t scared of death, I was scared of leaving too much of my life unlived. I was terrified of having a legacy of tedious existence—­being known for doing, amassing, and striving, but never really living.

I feared living a life incongruent with what I’d want in my eulogy, which, I decided, included faith, family, presence, and adventure. I wanted to be remembered for beach trips where I ran through the waves barefoot and bedtime stories that ended in tears of laughter, for lingering on summer nights to gaze at stars and being present to the people I was blessed to be doing life with.

After that December, my view of possessions finally shifted. Yours can too. The things to hold close, to be remembered for, aren’t things at all.

Fixing your eyes on Christ (Hebrews 12:2) and thinking of things above (Colossians 3:2) creates space to declutter your soul and align your life with your desired legacy.

Observe each possession, enjoy it, then let it go.

Because none of it is ever really ours in the first place.

Julia Ubbenga is a bestselling author, speaker, and blogger whose mission is to help other women let go of inner and outer clutter and reorder their lives around what and Who matters most. 

She loves Jesus, her husband, their five young kids, the sound of ocean waves, and the adventure found in any kind of travel. 

Julia’s new book, Declutter Your Heart and Your Home: How a Minimalist Life Yields Maximum Joy, provides practical tools for decluttering our inner and outer world, and shows us how to find freedom from hurry, chaos, and consumerism by reclaiming God’s peace in our hearts and our homes. Find Julia at www.richinwhatmatters.com and order Declutter Your Heart and Your Home.

{Our humble thanks to Zondervan for their partnership in today’s devotional.}