Beware: Personal Conviction Ahead!

I know we see the pumpkins at the grocery store, I am soaking up every beautiful fall magazine with images of fall and I watch the weather with so much vain anticipation ("fall" in Houston...ha!). But here, in my heart, it's pruning season. God has been steadily talking to me lately about the good things He has given me that I have allowed to become ultimate things. Really just a euphemistic way to say "idol worship". I seem to revisit this idol often. And though my spirit would love to get rid of it once and for all, the thought of it pains my flesh. My ultimate thing, friends, is my home. I want my nice pink wingback chairs to be my nice, matching country french red plaid chairs. I want my peeling paint side table replaced by the beautiful carved wood nesting tables I found online. I want new curtains, new bookshelves, a remodeled "mud room" and and and...
The lie is that once I have _____________, I'll be happy. I'll be satisfied. I type this, I read it and I know it's a lie. But when Satan whispers it in my ear, I believe every word!
We recently visited Reed's grandmother in her retirement home. It is very nice. She has her own little apartment with a small kitchenette, sitting/TV area, little bedroom and bathroom. She can cook if she likes but there is a warm, inviting, all-the-work-is-done cafeteria right down the hall. It is a simple life she leads. She has pared down her belongings and her activities to what matters. Church, friends, family. All she wants for Christmas or her birthday is just to be around her grand and great grandkids to watch them laugh and play. It's hard to think of another thing in the world to get her. She has no need to shop. She is perfectly content.
We will all end up in a similar situation at some time. Why do I feel the need to accumulate, decorate, shop, fill up my calendar (and my daughter's), when these often have no Kingdom ground to be gained?
Of course this can be taken to extremes. I'm just saying that that's exactly what has happened in my heart. It has become an extreme. When it is quiet around me, my thoughts are not on heavenly things, but rather on my silly home. It's a great house! Full of wonderful, warm, happy things. Baskets, plenty of food, this amazing computer, warm beds, fluffy towels and more dishes than I could ever use in one meal! And yet, all of these things that I think I own, can, if not checked, begin to own me. So I'm choosing to refocus. With God's grace, lots of Bible reading, friends praying for me, and a little self-imposed "fasting", I am choosing to turn my heart's attention back where it is truly satisfied and complete. I am learning.
Philippians 3:8-9 I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.