Are we not all hoarders?

Last year we hosted a fundraiser yard sale with items that had been donated by our neighbors.

Because I was two weeks postpartum and wasn't allowed to actually help (and there were plenty of fine workers to do the labor), I stayed inside with the baby and looked out my front window at all the merchandise being picked over by buyers.

A couple of hours after the sale was over, it was declared that everything not purchased was free. Free for the taking! Just take it! Get us rid of it!

And you know what happens when you signal the free sign? Mayhem.

As the leftover items were being bagged up and sent off to their fate (the dump) a whole new crowd of yard sale customers showed up to rummage through the bags and sniff out the outdated hardback books and crusty pastel Capris. As we were loading bags in our car to donate to Deseret Industries, one woman started digging through our trunk.

Um, that jumper cable set belongs to us.

This spawned a conversation with my neighbors about hoarding.

Watching strangers collecting armfuls of somebody's craft projects of holiday items put together with glue guns and red sequins for who knows what use, we suddenly realized there is a culture of hoarding we never knew existed. Intense yard sale hoarding.

It would've been easy to sit there and judge these people, and I did for about 15 minutes until I realized that I hoard, too.

Not stuff. I throw things away while they are still hot. This may even be my weakness. The day of the yard sale I was scouring my house looking for items to throw out on the front lawn with the other merchandise. Chairs, stools, tables and my old maternity wardrobe were all sent out with a good riddance!

But I stash other things like hurt feelings and insecurities.

I have a stockpile of negative comments people have given me throughout my life. Bits of unforgiving and faithlessness crafted together by sloppy selfishness are in corners around my soul. I hoard fear, and it comes as a set with stress and anxiety.

In thinking about this lately, I've decided to have a personal yard sale to clean out my spirit and get rid of the stuff I don't need anymore.

This is your personal invitation. Please come with your pick-up trucks, trailers and roomy SUVS. I've got loads of selfishness, piles of pride and a vast collection of hurt feelings, ready to be yours, all offers accepted.

Hurry people. Everything must go!

C. Jane Kendrick writes for blog.cjanerun.com. She lives in Provo with her husband and two children.