I got all my shoes off the floor and onto shelves in our master closet yesterday.

It felt so good to have them all sorted and put away, and the closet looks a million times bigger and fresher!

But then like the crazed woman I am (call it an abrupt outburst of OCD?), I got on a tidying kick and started ROY-G-BIVing everything in sight…

…cardigans…

…pants…

…dresses…

…blazers…

…shirts…

…skirts.

They all got the Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue-Indigo-Violet treatment.

Of course, then the top shelf–where we keep pool towels and our spare bedding–even looked in comparative disrepair next to the lovely, newly tidied closet… So it got a little attention too.

I put these out-of-season coverlets into zipper bags I had on hand (these bags originally came with mattress covers in them, if memory serves, but I thought they might come in handy “one day” so I held onto them… And look: one day actually came!). These bags will keep them from getting dusty while stored.

And the sheet sets got the ol’ Martha Stewart treatment (surely you’ve seen this tip on Pinterest or elsewhere by now where you tuck the folded fitted sheet, flat sheet, and all-but-one pillowcase into the pillowcase from the set). So they suddenly looked tidy rather than slipping around in a stack gone all catywompus.

I even straightened out and refolded a couple of the towels. Things were shaping up all the way around in the closet…

but…

**{WARNING: SUDDEN SUBJECT SHIFT DIRECTLY AHEAD.}**

…Something began to nag at my heart through the process…

In the end, I must confess, I feel a little sick to see how many pairs of shoes and articles of clothing I own. [You know, me, who often has “nothing to wear.” Been there?]

I thought, “Really? Is this representative of who I am? When children in this world go unloved and starve, I buy shoes? Or yet another shade of cardigan?” Although most of these things were cheap as chips and/or are as old as Moses, it’s something I’ve been mulling over as I reflect on Luke 12:16-21… And I pray I am found “rich toward God”…

“And He told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

I never want to look around at any of my many blessings and ask, “where shall I store these, my blessings?”

Blessings are not made for storing and hoarding; they are made for sharing. And really, they are not “mine” at all because I am simply a trustee of God’s gifts, whether material, physical, or spiritual.

Then I was reminded of John 21:1-7a:

Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.

He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”

“No,” they answered.

He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”

When John proclaimed, “It is the Lord,” he did what I hope to do. He saw the gift and immediately knew that it came from the Giver. He recognized the blessing, and it compelled him to focus on Jesus.

I’m not sure yet how that might all pan out for my closet’s newly reorganized contents…

But I am thankful for the question:

Will I recognize my blessings as such, and will I allow them to direct my gaze to King Jesus?

…Will you?