A few weeks ago, when my husband was feeling overworked and rundown, he asked me to preach for him and the gospel text was from Matthew 6:19-24.
Living in Nigeria for nearly nineteen years has brought a variety of meanings to this text, but the one on my mind today relates to how my attachment to material things has been challenged over the years here.
I remember when I first came, I had to learn to keep my "treasures" in my bedroom because too often a visitor when see my abundance and request that I give one to him or her. I finally started to say, "When I leave, I'll try to remember your request." (That turned out to be a pretty good way to deal with it since I'm still here!)
Another thing I learned was to think twice before bringing a treasure from my childhood or youth when I'd have to risk getting it here. When I was first married, I carefully packed a china egg cup I picked up in London when travelling there with a sister. I wrapped it in the bottom of a sock and hoped it would make the journey: it made the journey ok, but not the unpacking. My new husband was helping me to unpack and had no clue why something would be in the bottom of a sock and when he shook it, the egg cup went flying across the room. I remember holding back the tears on that day, and have tried to learn to detach myself more and more from such material treasures.
(Over the years, my husband has proved to such a good cleaner that I had to teach his younger sister to check the rubbish pile after one of his cleaning episodes because he invariably throws one or another of my little treasures into the rubbish hole!)
Today I learned that lesson was more deeply learned than I would have thought. When I was in the USA over a year ago I decided to bring back another treasure. It was a special cut glass vase that I had gotten after a special event when I was in high school. I can't remember now if it was for a birthday or graduation or if it was from my parents or a sister, but I knew that the technique used to make it was nearly a lost art in our area so I had several special memories attached to it.
I brought the vase back and it was placed well in our previous house on a shelf in our bedroom, but here in the new house I put it on display in my study. I have noticed that it draws some attention and have held my breath a few times as it gets picked up and admired, but I think it must have somehow gotten placed on a lower shelf and too close to a curtain so when Nat pushed back the curtain when coming out of my bedroom, it some how got caught and came crashing down and became shards of glass on the cement floor.
Seeing it on the floor in many tiny pieces forced me to the edge of the bed and my first reaction was to want to cry, but a funny thing happened...I realized my reaction was not really one of tears or even to shout at Nat, instead I just wanted to retell the story and share with him how special the piece was to me and why. Nat took charge of sweeping up the mess and helped me pick out a few larger shards with designs on them to put away for a few memories and I realized that I had learned the lesson of detachment better than I had thought.
Treasures are nice, but memories and working together are far more important. I have memories of going to the Arnetz shop to purchase special gifts for others with my mom and of receiving one myself, and now I have memories of my teenage son helping me clean up the mess and share its memory with me. Annette will be sad too, she knew it was special to me...thank you Lord, for keeping my heart in tact and not worrying quite so much about material wealth.
Living in Nigeria for nearly nineteen years has brought a variety of meanings to this text, but the one on my mind today relates to how my attachment to material things has been challenged over the years here.
I remember when I first came, I had to learn to keep my "treasures" in my bedroom because too often a visitor when see my abundance and request that I give one to him or her. I finally started to say, "When I leave, I'll try to remember your request." (That turned out to be a pretty good way to deal with it since I'm still here!)
Another thing I learned was to think twice before bringing a treasure from my childhood or youth when I'd have to risk getting it here. When I was first married, I carefully packed a china egg cup I picked up in London when travelling there with a sister. I wrapped it in the bottom of a sock and hoped it would make the journey: it made the journey ok, but not the unpacking. My new husband was helping me to unpack and had no clue why something would be in the bottom of a sock and when he shook it, the egg cup went flying across the room. I remember holding back the tears on that day, and have tried to learn to detach myself more and more from such material treasures.
(Over the years, my husband has proved to such a good cleaner that I had to teach his younger sister to check the rubbish pile after one of his cleaning episodes because he invariably throws one or another of my little treasures into the rubbish hole!)
Today I learned that lesson was more deeply learned than I would have thought. When I was in the USA over a year ago I decided to bring back another treasure. It was a special cut glass vase that I had gotten after a special event when I was in high school. I can't remember now if it was for a birthday or graduation or if it was from my parents or a sister, but I knew that the technique used to make it was nearly a lost art in our area so I had several special memories attached to it.
I brought the vase back and it was placed well in our previous house on a shelf in our bedroom, but here in the new house I put it on display in my study. I have noticed that it draws some attention and have held my breath a few times as it gets picked up and admired, but I think it must have somehow gotten placed on a lower shelf and too close to a curtain so when Nat pushed back the curtain when coming out of my bedroom, it some how got caught and came crashing down and became shards of glass on the cement floor.
Seeing it on the floor in many tiny pieces forced me to the edge of the bed and my first reaction was to want to cry, but a funny thing happened...I realized my reaction was not really one of tears or even to shout at Nat, instead I just wanted to retell the story and share with him how special the piece was to me and why. Nat took charge of sweeping up the mess and helped me pick out a few larger shards with designs on them to put away for a few memories and I realized that I had learned the lesson of detachment better than I had thought.
Treasures are nice, but memories and working together are far more important. I have memories of going to the Arnetz shop to purchase special gifts for others with my mom and of receiving one myself, and now I have memories of my teenage son helping me clean up the mess and share its memory with me. Annette will be sad too, she knew it was special to me...thank you Lord, for keeping my heart in tact and not worrying quite so much about material wealth.
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