Treasured

Last weekend there was an estate sale at our new house. It was a literal marketplace of treasures from across the whole span of its owner's life. In the living room I found a small antique doll carriage with delicate handles that curved all the way around, looking like some fancy letter penned in calligraphy. It was marked only five dollars.

From the gleaming white hearth I rescued a cast iron tea kettle, black and tempered well from years of use. It was massive in size, not like the cute whistler I have that neatly sets on the stove. It clearly came from another time. The inside was a little rusty but none the worse for wear and from the outside it looked like maybe I just removed it from the hook above the fire pit where I might have just been preparing a meal.....100 years ago. It made me feel like a woman to buy that thing....like I was forging a kinship with women across the decades who worked harder than I work to do common everyday things. It made me want to bake bread and see the dough rising up in the pan or put my hands in the dirt to plant a garden or can tomatoes in glistening mason jars to feed my family in winter.

In one bedroom I found a chest of clothes from the sixties, bold patterns and bright colors all merging together into a kaleidescope awakening the senses. They reminded me of pictures of my family taken when I was a baby, all the women of our family proudly displayed on the front row of the photographs arrayed in their rich multicolors.

The rooms were full...and each return to a room brought my eyes to things I had not noticed in the last walk through. While I was looking I met a lady, a friend of the woman who had called this place home. While I had been looking in each room, picking up items, thinking about the item's use or what it's story might have been, she was picking up items and remembering...remembering stories that she was a part of...remembering times shared with a dear friend. While I was treasure hunting for things I might like to use in my home, her eyes were keenly trained, looking for particular items. As we were leaving, passing by the laundry room we noticed that there were more shelves with items on them around the walls. I picked up a glass pitcher, sturdy with a cobalt blue rim. It felt heavy in my hand, and I could picture it on the deck with fresh lemonade and lemons floating on the top. Then I noticed my new friend. She reached for a small flower pot with small cat peeking over the edge and clutched it to her chest. It was clearly the treasure that had been the object of her quest. Three word escaped her lips. "I found it!" She told me of the day they had gone shopping together and each bought one of these flowerpots. In rich detail she described the flower that been planted in the pot. Then happily she left with her treasure. I found more treasures that day...several lamps, sheets for the bed that will occupy one of the rooms...a whole season of a favorite TV show. There was a clock that displays the time on the ceiling and real original lava lamps.

I tucked my treasures in my new closet, not intending to take them to my present home to pack up and bring back. On the way home, empty-handed I thought about the lady with her flower pot. The pot was made of resin..no precious jewels or gold laden edges...it was just a pot...but the look on her face is one I will always remember. she gave that pot value with the joy written on her face in the finding of it. I am quite certain that if I walked into her home today I would find that small pot in a place of prominence. I know without a doubt that it is displayed on a shelf or centered carefully on a table. Maybe it is on the front porch with a flower in it like she described to me. Wherever it sits, it is in a place where it is valued. It is loved.

My life is alot like that. On some days I feel like everyone has more value than me...like this person teaches better than me and this person is prettier than me, and really this person has more market value than I will ever have. On some days, quite frankly I feel like that piece that the owner proudly brings to the Antique Roadshow and expectantly waits with their mind full of all the things this wonderful piece will buy them and then has their hopes dashed as they find it is worth 3 dollars on a good day.

But then God comes in with His eyes trained on all the treasures in the room, the things that are prettier than me and fancier than me and more useful than me and looks past those things because He is looking for me. He seeks me out and with a look of joy clutches me to His chest because he sees something of value in me. He sees my value because He knows my story... He knows what makes me sad what makes me happy and where the chips in my surface came from. He knows my story and how He has been a part of it and He values me....He gives me value because I am His and in His hands, pressed tightly to His chest, I know I am loved and valued and that I measure up. It is not because of the stuff I am made of...that's just common stuff. It is because He made me and He shares my story and when He looks at me He knows what I am and it is okay with Him. And when I look at Him, I know what I am, too.....treasured.

Remember

So, I suppose now I am beginning to feel a bit nostalgic. While I am about to burst with the anticipation of moving into my new house, I am also finding myself looking about my present home with a bit of sadness. Sitting in the sunroom this morning, enjoying the morning light coming through the treetops...watching squirrels run and play as if it were their own personal playground, and hummingbirds sipping from the feeder with wings fluttering so fast I can't catch sight of them....well, it feels bittersweet. In this room I have often watched my daughter play on her swingset, now used as a perch for the birds, abandoned for ipods and CDs and computer games. The tire swing, rehung on the day we moved in sways gently in the wind, no worse for the wear. In a small patch of sunlight just inside the woods two well-loved dogs are at rest. Snuggles, my dog of eighteen years whom I had long before my husband or my daughter...faithful companion her whole life...and Gabby whom we only had the joy of knowing for six short months...part jack russell, all energy... who left us much too soon. Looking up I see great, tall trees....trees that have grown to great heights but lack the strength to stand up in the fall and spring winds. Looking up at those trees reminds me of one Sunday afternoon when I came home from church and found that the top of one of those trees had broken off and landed square in the middle of my bed. There it stood that Sunday afternoon like a bedroom in some mythical forest, only with laundry in the corner and mismatched sheets. In that bedroom there remains the mark...a square of drywall, never painted over that I have threatened through the years to paint like a skylight.

When I asked Moriah yesterday what she would miss the most when we move, she answered without hesitation. "The memories," she said with a thoughtful look on her face. We shared a laugh, remembering our move here and how she cried nightly for what she had left behind. "I miss my red door! I miss my red tree!" she would cry out between sobs. Now, rather than tangible things she can put her hand on and touch, she will miss things that she can keep in her heart. It will be the Christmas tree standing boldly in the front window with what I suspect were far more white twinkling lights than the 1950's electrical outlet was made to support, eight birthdays shared with little girls whose milestones could be marked with the birthday party pictures across the years..now young ladies who look forward to helping Moriah design her new room, lost teeth, and more. These are the things we will miss.

Here I worked on my first quilt, made my first coconut pie, and went back to school in the comfort of my own living room. We have cried for our losses and rejoiced in our victories, and watched our child become a Christian and grow into the young lady she is today. We have opened God's Word and found words there that have been the foundation of our lives. This has been our home. We have prayed together and watched our prayers be answered and sought for answers when God had another plan.

I remember the day that I pulled into the driveway for the first time with my best friend since childhood and our children in tow. The gray cottage-looking house with paned-glass windows (with a red door, I might add) was just the kind of house I loved. My dear friend took in a deep breath of wonder and said, "Tami, this is your house!" And it was. It is not a perfect house. It has smudges on the walls and water spots on the ceiling. It doesn't always heat and cool evenly and it is a bit too close to the fire station (except when we have all those twinkling lights plugged into too few sockets).

Sitting here with my mug of coffee long grown cold, I realize the truth...the memories are not here in this house, they are in our hearts. Everything that has happened within these walls has a place where it resides within us to look back on, hold on to, and remember.

This is just what God called upon the Israelites to do when they crossed the River Jordan. He reminded them again and again to remember because He knew what we mostly do is forget. He reminded them to tell their children and allow all the memories to be a monument to the faithfulness of God...and to remember....always to remember.

While both this house and the house we will soon call home are gifts from God, it seems that the real gift is the memories we will carry with us....memories to remind us who we are and Who He is and that the true contentment of home is found in that place where His heart reaches out and touches ours.

Keeping the best

There is something rather disconcerting about touching every single thing one owns and deciding if it dear enough...functional enough...useful enough....valuable enough to make the cut to the new location. I have moved many times in the past but I have not done it well. I find it difficult to sort things well, to do it with the kind of planning that makes sense at the other end. My husband grew up in a family of movers. He can pack up the entire contents of someone else's home in a matter of hours. Swiftly working through the rooms he puts together cartons, sizes things up, wraps them up and labels them and calls it a day. However, not so on the homefront. When we set about packing up our things, each little thing holds some sort of story or memory or level of importance and we must decide what to group it with and what room it will belong in and how to pack it to keep it safe until we pull it out again at the end of our move.

Being an avid reader, I thought surely the best thing to do was to read a book about moving. I will get the information I need to formulate a plan and then it will be a piece of cake. This woman in the pages of her book told me I should look at each item and ask the question, "Can I possibly imagine living my life without this item?" This will effectively help me pare down to the things that are most important and help me cut out the things that are frivolous and less useful in my life. And so I set about doing this very thing. At first, I thought the craft room would be the best place to start. How much will I be crafting while packing up to move, right? I suppose this made sense in theory but in truth this room holds all the things I scrapbook with, my pictures of my entire life from its beginning. It holds the scrapbook of the year that my child was born. Within this room are all the report cards my child has ever received, every piece of art her sweet little hands have made, at any age, all the momentos of the life my husband and I have made together from its start...and so much more. Going through these things with objectivity is a task for someone with much greater fortitude of the heart than me.

So I moved to the living room (with the craft room in shambles and packing incomplete I might add), thinking that the books and things in that room would lend themselves to a greater level of objectivity and I would experience a greater level of success in my mission. The problem with the living room is that, well, this is where we live. This is where I help my daughter with her homework and prepare lessons for my students. This is where we enjoy a movie or a game and sometimes even eat supper. This is the room where the bills are paid. This room is too.....just too everyday to be able to go through the contents and weed out the needed from the wanted from the seldom ever even used.

Leaving that room to continue life in while we uproot everything else just seemed the wisest thing to do...so I moved on to the sunroom. Again, this is not a room that just has to be used daily. These things could be packed up, boxes taped up, labeled and pressed tightly into a corner, allowing room to put more boxes from rooms that must be used more daily like the kitchen, and of course the living room. I set about doing this, but found that each drawer held specific contents that belonged together... a drawer of comedy movies...a drawer of dramas....a drawer of workout videos (mostly not ever used, along with the various cords and bands that go with them). The things in this room were mostly not used but everything was in its place and it seemed foolish to spend my time going through things that were so neatly ordered. So what if many of those things are not important to me? I can deal with that at the other end.

Sitting down after a long day of packing that resulted in very few packed boxes, I comtemplated my dilemma. I am comfortable with things as they are. Although when I walk into other's well-kept homes with tidy shelves I want that for myself, I am not willing to go through the things in my home and look at them with the clarity required to eliminate the things that are cluttering up my life.

That is when it hit me that this represented the whole of my life. I want my life goals to be ever before me with a kind of focus that causes me to almost be unaware of the things that don't matter. I want to spend my time focusing on the things that God has pressed into the depths of my heart to be my life's mission. I want to live my life well for His glory and to have clarity and vision that eliminates the things that are unnecessary, unimportant, and rich only in temporal value.....and yet....these things are much too dear to let go of and these things are too much a part of my everyday life to sift through....and these things....well, they are compartmentalized so well in my life that it will just mess everything up to start pulling out that stuff. It is all better left alone. So mostly I do. I will sometimes bear up and have the courage, after constant pressing from the Lord to throw something out that is useless in my life but often I quietly pull it back at the last moment or keep it nearby just in case, thinking it can all be sorted at the other end. I am coming to see that often I accept what is good in place for what is best in my life. I have just too much clutter in my life as a whole. My life is full of good things, things that I see as absolutely needed to the fiber of my life and much of it keeps me too busy to enjoy the very best things God has for me. And truly, do I want to arrive at the other end realizing that not doing the hard work at this end left me with a cluttered life that did not allow what truly mattered to show forth?

And so on Monday I will begin again, looking at each item in my home and in my life with the question, "How will this item enhance my new home? Is it necessary to my life? Is it a good item that keeps me from allowing the best items to show forth?" I will also ask these questions in regards to my heart. "How does this habit enhance my spiritual walk? Is it necessary to my life? Is this something good in my life that gets in the way of God's best?"

I feel sure I still won't pack up the entire contents of my home in a matter of hours. Nor will my spiritual house be in perfect order in a matter of days. But I can take God's hand and allow Him to determine what stays and what goes and trust Him to always have His best for me in mind.

As for the house....I think someone better bring me some more trash bags......