Homewords – Fall 2006

It was one of those smells that immediately makes you dread discovering its source. It was coming from the laundry room and after being out of town for two weeks and just home, ready to crawl into my own bed at 11:30 that night, I was not looking forward to dealing with the cause. I opened the washer hoping it was a forgotten load of wet clothes – unfortunately, not. I peeked in the trash can wanting to discover a half eaten banana or moldy sandwich – struck out again. Finally I slowly approached the freezer to find that the door had been left slightly open. Food that was brick hard when we left on our trip was in the process of turning itself into mush. Oh, my goodness what a smelly mess! Tim promised that if I could leave the clean up until morning, he would help me. So with rubber gloves and a huge trash can, we began the early morning job of dumping the contents — the expensive roast that I had bought for our next family dinner, the packages of extra lean ground beef purchased on sale and the huge tub of chocolate chip cookie dough that I always keep on hand to make Shiloh’s favorite dessert. As we threw away what had once been valuable to us and now was useless. I couldn’t help but think of the verses in I Corinthians 3 that talks about building our lives on wood, hay and straw. In the end, those temporal foundations will be useless and used as fuel in the giant heavenly furnace. Only the things we do that have eternal impact–the gold, silver, and precious stones of life–will remain. Maybe it was in my grasping for some good out of this loss that I was reminded that the 24 hours that God gifts us with each day should have its focus on things that outlive time. For me this includes my family, my friends, and those people God gives me to touch with His love each day. It’s about being a hearer of His Word and a doer of His work. With summer coming to a close and school starting, fall is a great time to reevaluate how we’re investing each day and possibly make some mid course corrections in our year. Why not commit to disposing of those commitments and demands on your life that keep you from loving God and others. In their place, store up treasures in heaven through your time with your family, friends and quiet time with God. When we do these things, we will have a whole lot more to show for our efforts here on earth and even more to take to heaven with us. Here’s to earthly rubbish and eternal rewards, Love, Darcy © Copyright 2006 Darcy Kimmel