Life is way too short to woulda, shoulda, coulda. – Author-to-be, Linda Francis

We’ve been using small grocery sacks, the kind you see hanging up in a tree on a windy day, for our trash can in every room here in small town USA. They’re convenient and plentiful. They hang on door handles quite nicely.

And when they are full, you just put them into a larger sack, or box, or enormous black industrial strength trash bag used for construction and deconstruction, but that doesn’t work so well when you have filled the small plastic grocery sacks with compost material from a meal or many meals. Because it takes quite some time to fill an enormous black industrial strength trash bag used for construction and deconstruction, enough time that small grocery sacks stuffed full begin to smell.

Dollar store to the rescue.

We bought a trash can this week! Not so small that we have to empty it every day, but not so humongous that things will begin to grow inside before it’s full. Only one, mind you. All of our rooms outside of the kitchen are still adorned with Heartland Grocery or Dollar Store grocery or Menards or Home Depot plastic sacks on the doorknobs.

However, I am very grateful for our new trash can. It’s almost like we LIVE here now.

I am also grateful for some simple yet wise wisdom from author-to-be, Linda.

I have this little tendency that surfaces every now and then. I weigh myself down with coulda, shoulda, woulda, and I let the guilt of undone take over my thought process until I can hardly function. I walk around with a lip bitten, with eyes focused below instead of above, and I feel BAD in the moment and all through the day. You know – that phone call you should make to a friend, that thank you note that needs to be written, that apology that needs to be given, that visit that needs to happen. Those kinds of things.

Linda’s quick email to me this afternoon reminded me of the hymn, “And Can It Be?”

It’s old, but it’s WOW. Here are some of the words, but I replaced the thees and thous with regular ones to keep your eyes from glazing over, AND, I added a little boldy emphasis – work with me, people:

And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood!
Died he for ME? who caused his pain! For ME? who him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be that You, my God, should die for ME?
Amazing love! How can it be that You, my God, should die for ME?

Here’s where Linda’s wisdom reminded me of this hymn, but I can’t take out the eye glazing words, because it just wouldn’t be the same without the thine and the thees:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
thine eye diffused a quickening ray; I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
my chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

Here was the end of Linda author-to-be’s wisdom:

“If I don’t forgive myself and move on, I won’t grow and I’m not ready to become stunted. Life is good!  I need to live it thoroughly instead of just passing through.”

So, here’s to our new trashcan that will symbolize the throwing out of dead plants. Time to spring clean, Rhonda. Throw them out, I say, throw them out. But keep the sacks on the door knobs. For now…