The Closet
.....welcome to my closets!

One of the purposes of my blog is to take my readers into my home and  its rooms sharing many things as we go. Today, I would like to show you my closets.

Closets are not places I usually take guests but I will take you to them and describe them, what I have done to them and what I use them for. They are great places when used for organizing your life.

I have been organizing and re-organizing  lately. Therefore I  spend  lots of time in one or more closets. 

Since our children have all married and left this home I have assigned different purposes for each of their rooms ------ and closets. 

Our oldest daughter's room, which is temporarily filled with storage items, will be a guest room. It will be decorated  with military and college decor. The walls will be light gold and the rug is dark blue, maroon, gold and green. It will have bunk beds and other beds for the grandchildren or guests to use. This room will be filled with  memorabilia. This is where all photos albums, slides, family movies and scrapbooks will be kept. The letters Jim and I wrote to each other and the audio cassettes we taped when he was in the military before and after our marriage already fill an entire desk. Cedar chests and steamer trunks contain wedding gowns, old corsages and bouquets, special baby items, cards and other souvenirs worth keeping. Military foot lockers house uniforms and gear. The closet  has no door but will have curtains that can be used as stage curtains where the kids can put on plays. Bridesmaids' dresses, formal gowns, high heels, gaudy costume jewelry, old military uniforms, cowboy hats, vests and boots, super hero capes, knights' armor and swords will be in this lighted closet.

Our son's room is finished. It is a guest room. In the steamer trunks are things waiting to be gone through and moved elsewhere. It is decorated in a masculine fashion. There you will see things one might have found in Theodore Roosevelt's den. I love the deer head, Native American artifacts, nature scenes and wildlife carvings and paintings. The colors are brown and beige with touches or black, blue, green and orange found mostly in the western-style rug. The closet houses anything that has to do with bedding: sheets, blankets, bed pads, pillow cases, sleeping bags. If I need bedding I know exactly where to go to get it.

Our youngest daughter's room is used for storage right now too. Huge tubs of photos we have inherited, along with our own, need to be organized in albums or shared with the rest of the family. This future sewing and needle craft room will be dripping with lace, quilts, needlework, antiques all in white with accessories in sage green, lavender and pink. Baskets will hold antique handkerchiefs tied with ribbons, vintage cards, gloves, old dolls, sewing notions.  It will be as feminine as our son's room is masculine. In this closet is a gift-wrapping center complete with everything one could possibly need to wrap a gift. It also houses holiday decorations and gifts I've collected at off-season sales.

Downstairs, off the kitchen, we have a utility closet and in the office is the game, toy and puzzle closet for the grandchildren. I love closets and I love to organize them

There is another closet that I love. It is a source of everything I need. It is my most beautiful but most worn closet. It is invisible to all but One. I take it with me wherever I go. It is my prayer closet.

I talk to God all day long. I pray about needs in our family, for our children and their spouses. I pray for our grandchildren and those yet to come. I pray for others and their needs. Every time I see a cross on the side of a highway I pray for the family of the one who died. On my return route seeing the same crosses I pray for all those of us who pass those places to drive safely. A long time ago a teacher taught her class to stop work and pray whenever we heard a siren.  I pray that I would be more like Jesus.I pray that I would have a heart for prayer and reading of the Word.  I pray for our country and its leaders--for their protection and wisdom. I thank God. I wrestle with God. I cry. I praise Him. I sing.

No one else is allowed in this closet but me and the Lord God. I am sometimes in this closet for long periods of time fervently praying for a special need or many needs. I also make quick trips into my prayer closet to shoot up a thank you or a plea. I would be lost without it.

I have what I call my prayer book---a pretty little book that I bought unused, second hand, for under a dollar I am sure. It has verses or pretty sayings and pictures on the page that lists the months' names and several pages are blank for each month. I write down prayer concerns, the year and date. Later I go back to write down or check off what the Lord has done. At times when my heart fails me, I take it out to be reminded of what the Lord has done.

There are always so many reasons to pray. What I wrote above I hope you don't take as boasting. I was giving examples of reasons to pray.  No one can ever take this closet away from you. It can never be filled to capacity or get messy except with the pouring out of your heart.

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Phillipians 4:6