I went to my grandmother's house today for the first time since she moved to a nursing home. It was so weird to pull up there and know she wasn't there. As soon as I rounded the curve and saw her mailbox I got a little choked up. As I walked up to the front door, tears stung my eyes...it was locked. If she was there, it would have been open, and I would be able to see her through the screen, because she would be waiting for me. We were looking through some of her things, reminiscing, and it was such an odd feeling. These were her things, her jewelry, her pictures, her decorations...things she loved and chose for herself. And now they sit. It reminded me of when my other grandmother was sick. She was going to move in with us, so we had a garage sale to sell a lot of her stuff. She made several hundred dollars. I remember the sadness in her eyes as she counted up the total at the end of the sale. "This is all my life's belongings are worth?" she said. It was a sad realization, and one that stuck with me...one I remembered again today.
We spend so much time and money on "stuff." We work crazy hours...hours spent away from our family...to buy stuff. And then we work more to pay for the insurance to protect our stuff. And then we get bigger stuff. It consumes so much of our life...our time, our energy. But in the end that stuff is either going to the dump, or getting sold off in a garage sale. Sure, some things may be handed down to family...but most of it is trash or someone else's second hand treasure. It's meaningless.
In our culture, we value hard work and striving to be the best. I value those things too, but lately, I feel like we're all being duped. We're spending our lives climbing ladders and accumulating stuff. For what? Has the American Dream been a smoke screen all along to cause us to waste our lives in meaningless pursuits? It's not making us happy. It's not making us healthy. It's making us slaves...slaves to our stuff.
September is Blog Month for Compassion. I love to use my little piece of cyber space to hopefully promote a little change. Our first assignment for blog month is to write what we would say to our childhood self. I've been thinking long and hard about it this week. What is the one thing I would say to my childhood self---or to my children---or to my sponsored child? If they were going to hear one thing, what would I want it to be? After today, I think it would be this:
The only things that will truly last are the things you do for Eternity's sake.
Everything else is temporary and meaningless...here today and gone tomorrow. What matters is not what you deposit in your bank account but what you deposit into the hearts of others. Spend yourself in loving others. Wear yourself out loving others. Love God with all you have. Expend every ounce of energy loving your family and those around you. I know you have to work; we all have to eat, and hard work is a good thing. But work as if you're working for the Lord. Moms, love on your children like their very souls depend on it. Make your laundry and the dishes a sacrifice of love for them. Show love, live grace, forgive radically, love people. Everything else is just a distraction. Then you will be rich...not just in this life, but for all of eternity. Work with unwavering focus at loving people. The house, the cars, television, smart phones---all secondary. They should all be tools that you use to love people better. It's okay to have these things, as long as they are dedicated to the purpose of loving people. Then, you will get to the end of your life, and the stuff won't matter, because you will be leaving a legacy of love and changed hearts, and healing and grace...which is so much more valuable than a few hundred dollars worth of stuff.
If this is resonating with you at all, can I encourage you to do one small thing to shift your focus from "stuff" to "people?" Sponsor a child through Compassion. What I love about this, is not only do you send money that pays for a child's food, schooling, medication, and other necessities, you write letters and build relationships with these children. You encourage them to do well in school, to take care of themselves, to come to a personal relationship with Christ. It is amazing what so few American dollars can do for these precious children in poverty. Not only will you be affecting eternity for the child that you sponsor, but you and your family will be changed as well. That's God's economy. You invest a little and he pays outrageous dividends. I never thought I could love a child half way across the world that I've never met. But I do. I love him as part of our own family. He is constantly in my thoughts and prayers. Sponsoring one child is not going to change the world...but it can change one child's world. And in so doing, you'll be surprised how it will change yours too.
"Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?"
Matthew 16:24-26
