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Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

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Spring Cleaning for Your Soul

Apr 6 Leave a Comment

It’s usually not until the first rays of spring sunshine come streaming through my window, until I feel the first bit of warmth on my skin, that I realize just how low my spirits dipped during the winter.

I tend to let my home get a little dirtier in winter because I just don’t have the energy or motivation to keep it all together. The darkness hides the dust anyway, right?

But what about my heart? Does the darkness of winter hide the cobwebs that creep into my soul? Or do I just choose to ignore them, hoping that no one else can see them, pretending it will get better? Because as much as winter is a season of celebration and coziness, by the time February rolls around, it’s all lost its luster and I’m slipping into old habits. Discontentment. Criticism. Clipped words and clipped wings.

In need of some spring cleaning for the dusty parts of your soul? Start by taking stock of what you have. | TheNestedNomad.com

Just like I do a few rounds of purging and spring cleaning for my home, I’m finding that I need to do the same kind of cleaning for my soul. Of course, I can’t do this without the help of Jesus. The light of the sun illuminates the filthy parts of my home, and the Light of the Son illuminates the filthy parts of my heart. He’ll help me banish the stains, the dust, the clutter. He’ll restore me to newness.

If you’re in need of some soul-level spring cleaning, I hope you’ll find these practices helpful.

1. Take stock of what you have.

A good spring-cleaning purge starts with figuring out what you have that’s useful and beautiful. At the soul level, this means taking stock of the things you’re grateful for: relationships, a hobby, a ministry, moments with God, upcoming events, a way you’ve grown. These are just a few things I’m grateful for as I surface from winter.

  • My husband, Dan. I’m always grateful for him, but my heart is bursting with love for him right now. It was a rough winter with his injuries and hospital visits and ACL surgery, but it also gave us tons of quality time together. He’s been supportive of every big and small milestone in my writing and the launch of this blog, and the way he cheers me on every day is so much more than I deserve. And as we look forward to what spring and summer hold for us, we couldn’t be more satisfied with our little life together. Marriage isn’t always easy or pretty, but right now it is. And I’m soaking up every moment.
  • My home(s). My childhood homes. My mom’s house. The apartments I’ve shared with friends and Dan. Even in the direst of financial circumstances, I’ve always had a home—physically, with a working roof and protection from the elements, and figuratively, a place where I’m known and valued. Each place holds a whole lifetime of memories because of the people I’ve laughed, wept, and broken bread with in each one.
  • Work that fills me. I know what a rare joy and blessing it is to do work that I love and that gives me life instead of taking it. It’s a beautiful thing to have enough energy left after work to pour into Dan and my own creative endeavors. And bonus: I get to work with talented writers and editors all day, which has helped me refine my own writing.

2. Purge the things that are weighing you down and clean the dirt off your heart.

Just like you’d purge the items that are broken, no longer used, or taking up unnecessary space, do the same thing with your life. Consider your schedule, your work, your relationships, your hobbies, your kids’ activities, your habits, your sins. What needs to go? What is sucking the life out of you? What are you doing that doesn’t have a purpose for God or for your family? Which thorny sins are stuck in your skin? Here’s just a small picture of what I’m purging.

  • Checking my phone constantly to see what everyone else is up to, instead of being present to create memories of my own.
  • Making excuses for why I don’t have time to read. It’s my favorite thing. I need to do it more.
  • Seeking to be heard and understood before seeking to hear and understand.
  • Assuming intentions instead of praying for what could be under the surface.
  • Worrying that God will take away blessings. (Truth-telling time. This one is so difficult for me.)

3. Notice what’s missing and take steps toward closing the gaps.

When you purge the old from your closets and your cabinets, it’s often apparent that there are holes to fill in and things that are missing. Getting rid of the old helps us to see where these gaps are. As you let God sweep away the broken pieces of your soul, notice what you need to fill up with instead. It could actually be nothing, just silence. It may be directly related to what you purged. It could be something new altogether.

I know there are many holes that we often can’t fill ourselves. You may be dreaming of a husband or a baby or to be debt-free, and you know that these things are not entirely within your control. That said, consider what small steps you can take to move toward your good desires. You may want to step out of your comfort zone and talk to someone new once a week. You may want to change your diet or have a conversation with your husband. You may need to talk with a financial planner. These are not solutions or quick fixes, but they are healthy steps that are within your control.

Here are the steps I’m taking to fill in some gaps:

  • Choosing a few words each day to speak encouragement to Dan.
  • Asking my people: How am I doing? Am I exhausting or life giving to be around?
  • Reading for at least an hour each weekend.
  • Saying out loud, “I trust You. Help me trust You more.” I’ll say the words thousands of times if that’s what it will take to make me believe them and live them.

It’s spring. It’s the season of lightness and brightness and freshness. Let’s do the work necessary to refine our souls, not just our homes. Let’s stretch our limbs and our comfort zones. Let’s turn our faces to the sun. Let’s let the Lord make us new.

What do you have that you’re grateful for today? What’s weighing your soul down as you come out of winter? What small steps do you need to take to fill in your gaps and get a little closer to the life you desire? I’d love to hear from you. 

Grateful Heart w/ Ember Grey

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Filed Under: Faith, Simple Living & Minimalism Tagged With: faith, family, freedom, goals, gratitude, habits, home, intention, joy, life, purging, soul, spring cleaning

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brittanylbergman

Brittany L. Bergman
✔️ Kamala shirt ✔️ Kamala pearls ✔️ Ka ✔️ Kamala shirt
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✔️ Kamala mug 
✔️ Kamala curls

It’s a great day to witness the shattering of a glass ceiling, to embrace empathy and decency, and to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The work is only just beginning, but today, we celebrate. Congratulations, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris! 👏🏼🎉💙
What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaki What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaking, cozy, chaotic-but-strangely-quiet Christmas we had. ✨🎄✨

That’s a wrap for me on 2020—I’ll be off social media until sometime in January. May you be filled with peace and hope as we close this year but still wait for the close of this chapter in our history. 💜
I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; d I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; depression and rage; exhaustion and loneliness. But I can honestly say this is the weariest Christmas I can remember. I say that not to shine a spotlight on me, but to say that I have a feeling this might be your experience too. I’m with you.
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And so the words to my favorite Christmas hymn hit me different this year. They resonate in a place much deeper, more tender and true than ever before. I rejoice in the giggles of my meltdown-prone child. I rejoice in stolen moments alone in the dark, the room lit only by the glow of the Christmas tree. I rejoice in every video and every social media post I see of a frontline worker receiving the COVID vaccine, our ticket out of this nightmare. I rejoice in the vision that next Christmas might look more familiar than this one does. I rejoice in the hope of Christ, whose universal, creative, motherly love holds the whole universe together.
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On this Christmas Eve, I’ll leave you with this quote from Howard Thurman. I hope these words bring a slant of light to your day.
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“The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother’s nest, it claims its right to live. It is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil.”
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Whatever and however you celebrate at this time of year, I’m sending you all my love and peace. 💫
I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in the nick of time.

I baked cookies with Selah without getting frustrated (first time ever?), took the kids on drive to see Christmas lights, and wrapped a bunch of gifts.

But here’s what I think did the trick, and please do steal this idea (because I stole it from someone else but have no idea who): Magical Movie Night™️.

On Saturday night, I stealthily placed a golden ticket under Selah’s pillow (which I printed from the internets and colored quickly with a yellow marker; good enough is good enough for Magical Movie Night!). We put Eamon to bed and got Selah ready for bed too, going through all the normal motions of brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, picking out a book. When we climbed into bed, I told her to look under her pillow.

She was confused when she found the ticket, and I told her it was for a Christmas movie night. “When?” she asked. “Right now!” I said. “What do you mean ‘right now’?” When it dawned on her that she was going to stay up past her bedtime to have a special movie night with Mommy and Daddy (sans Eamon), she lost her mind with excitement.

Bonus: Gramma was waiting downstairs with a bag of popcorn and Swedish Fish!

We snuggled under blankets, turned on Elf, and laughed our festive butts off. (This was her first time watching Elf, and it felt like the dawning of a new era. It’s such a big kid movie! And she loved it! Hold me. 😭)

Deck the halls, bring on Christmas, fill my mug with holly jolly goodness. 

I also acknowledge this has been a crappy year in so many ways, and I know many of you are not going to be able to access Christmas cheer this year. That’s okay. The real spirit of Christmas is light breaking through the dark, love making a way, and the beauty that can’t help seeping through the dirty, messy, horribly human moments of our lives. So you’re covered.

(And if you want to fake it ’til you make it, give Magical Movie Night a try. It’s the actual easiest.)
In which I couldn’t come up with a clever captio In which I couldn’t come up with a clever caption. There are signs of life but my brain is dead. 💀
“This is what I find most mystifying about Adven “This is what I find most mystifying about Advent: the period of waiting ultimately ends in great joy, but we can’t get to that great joy without intense, active, unbearable pain. In Advent we sense the mingling of anticipation and anxiety, excitement and disappointment, joy and pain, hope and fear.
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“On this side of history, we have the luxury of waiting with great hope, great joy, and great expectation. We know Jesus will be born, we know he will save us and redeem us, we know he will die and rise again, and we know he will set all things right one day.
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“But before Christ came, Advent was dark. It was lonely and unknown, as the Israelites waited in faith to hear from God, and all they got was… nothing. Silence.
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“Isn’t this more characteristic of the waiting we usually do? The waiting seasons of our lives are less often marked by joy and hope and more often marked by pain and fear. They are not often cozy or comforting but difficult and dark and even laborious.
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“We wait as a pregnant mother waits for her child to be born—there’s a vision of the joy to come, to be sure, but in the throes of gut-wrenching labor pains, we think we might actually die before we see that joy fulfilled. After a long season of pregnancy, when the fullness of time has arrived, the advent of labor ushers in the real period of waiting—and it is active and painful and raw.”
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// From “In the Fullness of Time,” a new blog post on @first15. There’s a link in my bio to the whole piece, with thoughts on pregnancy, Advent, and waiting well in an exceptionally hard year. 💜 Thank you so much to @first15 for publishing this post!
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Brittany L Bergman is a for-profit blog. Any company that I collaborate with is chosen by me and fits the theme and readership of my blog. At times, posts may contain affiliate links or sponsored content, which is never at any charge to you.

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