Packing Light: Limitation or Freedom?

Oops, I guess we have 3 lessons from the Maui trip! I forgot that I wrote this before we left but never published it.  This whole idea of “Packing Light” has impacted me so much this past year. Hope it can be a blessing to you as well.

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So this past weekend in preparation for our trip, I read the baggage requirements for our flight.   Once I read that we had to pay for any checked bags, you better believe I was emailing my traveler buddies and finding some carry-ons we could use instead.  A generous friend gave us two.  Since we have 4 people (2 of which are small, however), and just two carry-on bags, I figured it might be tricky to pack. But after I’d packed all we needed, I stood and looked at the suitcases. One was full and one was still empty.  Hmm… apparently it’d be easier than I thought.

As some of you know, I am a notoriously and obsessively light packer. Probably to a fault.  Let’s just say my husband has found himself sockless on more than one occasion, and in Switzerland I had to buy a pair of shoes after my feet were bloodied and useless from walking 5 hours in the only pair I’d brought.  But despite these mishaps, I still maintain that 99% of the time you can always make due.  My obsessive light-packing may be a disorder, but if it is I’m sticking with it.

Probably what caused my condition/conviction was the month-long trip I took to Europe in college.  We were told to only bring one carry-on (no checked bags) as we’d be doing a lot of walking and taking trains, etc.  Though we were welcome to bring what we wanted, they warned us: Whatever you bring you will carry many many miles.  I took this warning seriously.

I brought only the shoes on my feet, and a few black, long, comfortable cotton dresses.  We had to hand-wash and line-dry our clothes in the sinks of the hostels, so lightweight materials were best.  Everything I packed was strategic, multi-use, wrinkle-resistant, lightweight. (And cute, because that matters too.)

A month later when we returned to the states I’ll admit that I wanted to burn every stitch of clothing I had taken, but they had served me well. And I became a believer in packing light.

Now I’m not trying to claim moral superiority or say you’re evil if you love taking your 10 pairs of shoes on vacation, but I will say that the majority of the girls on that Europe trip did not heed the advice to pack light.  I have never seen such enormous suitcases in my life. Many girls donned perfectly coordinated outfits … which were stained with sweat from heaving around those huge bags!  And while I’m sure no one voted me best-dressed, I loved that it took 30 seconds to get dressed in the morning, no effort to figure out what matched, and I could swing my bag over my shoulder and hop on a train to Italy with the greatest of ease. It made it easy to travel, move quickly, easy to focus on seeing the sights.  In short, it gave me freedom.

What’s the point?

There’s no right or wrong way to pack, but packing light just makes it easier to get around. Far from being a limitation, it really is a freedom.

First Peter tell us that this life is really just one long trip.  We’re away from home, right? We’re traveling along this road of life on our way to our true Home.  And while I find it natural to pack light for Hawaii, packing light for life seems so much harder. I like my stuff!

This has been on my mind often as we consider potential houses to buy (when ours sells!). Of course, again, there is no right or wrong sort of house to buy–God has different things for each of us.    But my point is that while I’ve always been drawn to bigger, better, always seeing “how much” I can get–it’s been so helpful to keep in mind that the more we have the more we have to carry around this life. Packing light, so to speak, is not a limitation, it’s a freedom. Now I’m realizing my thought pattern has switched to, “how little can we get away with having?”

I cannot tell you how this has changed my life in the last six months.  I was talking to my mom the other day about how thankful I was that we had the freedom to look for houses in a low price-range. Though our choices are certainly “limited” in number, I’m so thankful that we have the freedom to look in that range.  The rich young ruler walked away sad because he did not have the freedom to pack light. He couldn’t give it away. He had too much stuff. How much easier it would have been for him, how much lighter and happier he would have been, if he would have severed the hold that his stuff had on him and simply given it all away!

When we have less, we are free.

Jeff and I have the possible opportunity down the road for a short-term ministry trip that would be a dream come true. No, really. Dream. Come. True.  It would take a significant amount of fund-raising to make it happen. Or, we realized, if we sold our house we could simply save up for a few months and pay for it ourselves!  What FREEDOM!   I shook my head in amazement when we realized this.  How fun it would be to have that kind of freedom!   To have a small “carry-on” house and be able to run around however and whenever God leads! 🙂  Far from being a limitation, it would be a freedom indeed!

My prayer is that wherever we live, whatever we have, we might take a step toward packing light in this life. Maybe that means selling something, maybe that means just using up all that we have. But the key is in our perspective.

Do we see our small carry-on as a limit or a freedom?

As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7 (in reference to marriage, but applicable here too):

This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those…who buy [live] as though they had no goods,³¹and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.

³²I want you to be free from anxieties…I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

Hear my heart. To those of you who have little: What freedom!  And to those of us with much–let’s think of how we can lighten our load.

Remember how, when I returned from Europe, I wanted to burn every stitch of clothing I had worn during that month? Well that’s exactly what will happen to all of our stuff at the end of our life.  How great would it be to wear it all out–to use every last bit of it for the good work God has for us here. How sad it would be to have piles and piles of unused things, stuff that simply weighed us down during the years God had given us on earth.

Living with less gives us freedom.  Here’s to packing light, in Maui and in life.