Several years ago my husband and I spent a weekend clearing out our bedroom closet. He walked down the steps with a large pile of well-worn socks and declared, “I have decided that these socks no longer spark joy.” In my mind I was thinking, “Honey, they haven’t sparked joy for about ten years, especially those red ones.”

His comment was a result of the Marie Kondo phenomenon. Kondo is a television personality who brilliantly came up with the idea to do shows helping people become more organized and efficient with their homes and their usage of space. Disciples of Kondo will recognize the “spark joy” reference. Her greatest teaching is that you should hold an object in your hands, and if it doesn’t spark any joy in your heart, you need to toss it out. I read a news report that said that once this idea went viral, thrift stores everywhere were suddenly overwhelmed with joyless donations. Her thinking is pretty revolutionary, don’t you think? But more importantly, don’t you wish you had come up with it first?? I sure do!

Kondo reached her peak during the pandemic, when suddenly millions of viewers had time to actually consider what was crammed in their closets, but her methods are still relevant today. I have a friend who is still laboring to disseminate his mother’s possessions many months after her passing. His advice to all of us is to let go of our stuff before we overwhelm our children with it after we die. If you have had to clean out your parent’s home after their passing, you can probably relate. And hopefully those moments teach us to clear things out now before our grieving children are burdened by mere things.

A friend of mine coined another phrase to describe the opposite of sparking joy. She said that she realizes there are things in her home that only “spark sadness.” She described how a beautiful figurine that looked just like her dog now sparks sadness, as the dog has passed away.

I have a favorite photograph in one of my guest rooms of my in-laws holding hands as they crossed the finish line at the Turkey Trot in Duck, N.C. many years ago. Since my mother-in-law died, this picture of her smiling in her Penn State hat and wearing her race number pinned to her sweatshirt often sparks sadness for me. She will never do that race again, which was the highlight of our Thanksgiving day for many years. We keep things like these to honor the sweet bitterness of lost loves, but sometimes holding them truly sparks sadness, and rightfully so.

There is a difference between things that no longer spark joy and things that outright spark only sadness. Sometimes relationships are like that. They can go fallow for awhile, and temporarily fail to spark joy. Then a reconciliation or reunion happens and turns it around. But other times, the thought of them brings only a sweet-less bitter that is permanent. And that’s when you know it is time to let go.

This applies to anything that is bringing you despair and angst. When past mistakes, regrets, guilt, sin, poor choices, failures, bad relationships, hurts, anger, betrayals, etc. bring nothing useful to your life and only drag you deep into a place of darkness, let it go.

Paul calls us to reach forward and grasp what Christ has already planned for us:

Philippians 3:13

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.“

Remember when you were learning how to cross the monkey bars at the playground? Somebody held you up, and you grasped a bar. Then to move forward, you had to let go of the bar and grasp the next one in front of you. Otherwise your arms would eventually wear out and you would drop to the ground.

Forget what is behind.

Strain toward what is ahead.

Jesus took hold of the cross so that you could take hold of life, and he promised it would be a life abundant with meaning, purpose, and joy. So let go of whatever you are holding onto that sparks only sadness in your heart today. Jesus has so much more for you than that.

Still Sparking Joy in Mercersburg, PA