Getting rid of the clutter in your life!

Campaign signs assembled but never used

In politics, the process of running is never easy, nor inexpensive.  You also are not sure from one term to the next, what you might do four years later.  For all intent and purposes, you leave your options open.  When I ran my last race in 2009, I ordered a number of signs because it's cheaper to do them at the same time, and assembled them all.  As the campaign progressed, I ended up not needing all of them, however even after winning that race, decided to not get rid of those assembled signs.  While I wasn't sure what I might do in 2013, I was pretty sure that was my last city council race.  However you keep your options open, and I kept my signs.  They've taken up a corner of my garage for 5 1/2 years now and even though of I've been out of office now for over a year, have "haunted" me for some time.  They were a burden if you will.

Moving forward!

Saturday, I decided to do something about it, tore them down, cut up the sticks for fire wood and redeemed a corner of my garage so that I could move on and use it for other things.  As I was cutting up the wood, I got thinking of how many burdens we so often carry with us, often for much longer than we really need to carry them.  I thought of my role as Stake President, when I meet with individuals who have carried a burden in their life or a mistake they once made and are ready to forsake and move forward.  It's probably one of the most sweet and tender experiences for me to watch the atonement work in their eyes and mind.  It often brings tears to my own.  I completed the task with the resolve that I needed to free myself more often, be a little more resolved to let things go and work a little harder to clean up those corners in my life.