Inheritance in a Shoebox

           I have a goal this summer: clean out the garage.  And nothing will stop me.  Not heat nor spiders nor dust.  Nothing.  But it is a discipline for me.  I like to reminisce.  So, when my daughter came out to the garage to see what progress I had made, she found me with a shoebox in my hand. 

            “What’s that, Mommy?”  “Oh, it’s nothing.  It’s just a box I kept from high school.”  “What’s in it?  Can I see?” 

            So I opened the lid of the box.  The box contained several notes and drawings, a newspaper article, a bead necklace, and an old corsage - that had taken my breath away once.   They are the little things that a fifteen year old girl had collected because she did not want to forget.  And now, the fifteen year old girl was showing her daughter the beginning of her own legacy.

            I met Chris at age fifteen and fell ~ hard.  I am happy to say that I have never recovered.  Even though the contents of the shoebox would never garner any kind of monetary wealth, I would never part with it.  It is the time capsule that tells the beginning of a love story. 

            So there I stood, pulling out bits of paper and trinkets, all from the year I had met my daughter’s future father.  I laughed and smiled and thought it strange that I should be telling Bella about the details of my friendship with her father, when I was only five years older than she is now.  She took it all in.  It was part of her own story too.

            One of the things I told my husband before we married was that it was far more romantic to be poor and in love than to be rich and in love.  He then informed me that I was about to get my wish.  But time has proved me wrong.  We are very much in love with one another, but we are obtaining more and more “wealth” by the day.  Our cups runneth over, but the contents cannot be weighed on scales.  The inheritance we are building is invisible. 

            The box and its contents were visible, but the relationship that it represented was unseen.  God was the One who sovereignly brought Chris and me together.  The box was a way to “see” the invisible hand of God.

            Recently, in our ladies Bible study, we were contemplating why God uses the visible to point to the invisible. A woman there had a good answer for this question.  She thought that it was because we are only human and finite and therefore God uses things we can see and relate to here on Earth in order to teach us something about Him.  When one views a mountain, one knows a little bit more about God’s splendor, majesty, and bigness.

            I have been contemplating the words “inheritance” and “possession”.  In my contemplations, I came across this verse from Ezekiel, “This shall be their inheritance: I am their inheritance: and you shall give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession.”(Ezekiel 44:28 ESV)

            Like the Levites, I can give my daughter no lasting possession here.  Her earthly inheritance adds up to nothing more than nostalgic photos and letters in a shoebox.  But, oh, what a trade!  Nothing lasting here.  Lacking no good and eternal thing There.  For, just as with the Levites, her inheritance shall be the Lord Jesus Himself.  When she opens up the shoeboxes of her past, she will hold letters and photographs that she can see, but my hope is that she will learn of the true realities that speak louder than the contents of any shoebox.    For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.(Hebrews 13:14)                      

                                                                        ~ Your Fellow Sojourner

On Jordan's Stormy Banks

1. On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie.

2. All o’er those wide extended plains,
Shines one eternal day;
There God the Son forever reigns,
And scatters night away.

Chorus: I am bound (I am bound)
I am bound (I am bound)
I am bound for promised land,
I am bound (I am bound)
I am bound (I am bound)
I am bound for promised land.

3. No chilling winds nor poisonous breath
Can reach that healthful shore;
Sickness, sorrow, pain and death,
Are felt and feared no more.
(Repeat chorus)

4. When shall I reach that happy place,
And be forever blessed?
When shall I see my Father’s face,
And in His bosom rest?
(Repeat chorus)