Weekly Reflection - Junk Drawer Brain

I believe just about everyone has a junk drawer in their house somewhere, probably in the kitchen or laundry room.

A junk drawer is a holding place for a bunch of random stuff that has no permanent home. The drawer holds things like extra keys (including ones you don’t know what they open), gift cards, expired coupons, random business cards, a few coins, old phone chargers, scissors, a flashlight, tiny screwdrivers, extra batteries, a few old instruction manuals, random receipts…. You get the idea.

Sometimes, my brain is like that junk drawer. Just a lot of random stuff shaking about with no landing place. For example, yesterday I decided to do a load of laundry and run the dishwasher. I wanted to get the laundry out of the washer before I started the dishwasher. I got the clothes together first and threw them in the wash. Then I saw that there were some towels in the dryer, so I folded them and laid them on the dryer. Then I saw the vacuum in the laundry room and thought, “hey, I should really run the new vacuum and see how it works.”

I started to run the vacuum and then I was needed outside, so I left the vacuum in the middle of the room. I came back in and the laundry was ready for the dryer. I moved the laundry and then started the dishwasher. I saw there was a box on the table and decided to open it and it contained two more packages. Dumb move because I had just tripled my visual clutter and had three boxes to deal with instead of one.

Then I got a text about writing a check, so I stopped for that. Then I started vacuuming again and finished when I heard the dryer. I didn’t want to leave the clothes in the dryer, so I folded the laundry. I didn’t want to leave it there, so I started to put it away as I was walking around the vacuum in the middle of the floor along with the 3 boxes still on the table. Ugh. I tell myself, “Just do one thing at a time!”. I stopped and put the vacuum away as I tried to refocus my mind.

This junk drawer brain of mine is becoming a problem. How was I supposed to be able to meditate on the Word with “junk drawer brain”? There isn’t enough room with all the random thoughts and “to-do’s” jumping out at me. My mind AND BODY were too chaotic. However, there is hope. I noticed my failure and was able to refocus my mind. Then I did my best to complete one whole task at a time at a slower pace as I meditated on the Word. Then I wrote this devotional.

Do you ever have a “junk drawer brain”? Do any of the verses below speak to you?

Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. Ecclesiastes 4:6

But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, Luke 10:41

The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. Proverbs 21:5

The discerning sets his face toward wisdom, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth. Proverbs 17:24