We have nothing

Through the loss of my baby I have seen things I never saw before. One of those things is that so much of the things in life that we think are important…aren’t. Scripture tells us…

 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Matthew 6:24

It also tells us…

Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:1-3

Even when I thought I had learned those lessons…there was more for me to learn. As I sat in my living room only a couple hours after losing my baby I found myself looking at everything around me…the furniture, the stuff, my children. And nothing in the room mattered except the people. I could have walked away from everything that day and not been bothered in the least by it so long as I had the people I loved with me.

I still feel that way. As the days have passed, as a week passed, I found a little of myself again, a little of the care for a very, very limited number of things has survived. I want to hang onto the few things I have that are connected with the baby I lost. I want to hang onto the limited number of things that are connected to my marriage and to the days when my children were little.

There is almost nothing on this earth that serves as a reminder of the baby I lost…my baby simply didn’t live long enough for that. The day I lost my baby I picked up an empty tote and I looked at it…thinking I had more things than would fill that tote left from the younger days of my other children but I had nothing left from the baby I had just lost.

It was a brutal reminder that we come into this world with nothing and we leave it with nothing. We simply have nothing. No matter how many things we acquire while we live on earth…we have nothing. All of the things that fill our lives are but items that take up space, no matter how much something may matter to us…in the end we will leave this world with none of the things that meant so much to us while on earth.

 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21

I grew up in a family that quite honestly valued things. When those things overran the space we had we simply got more space. A bigger house, another storage building, a rented storage room in a storage facility. When that space got full…we got another storage place. That was the way it was. There was stuff…everywhere.

My grandparents…wonderful as they were…were like night and day in that regard. My grandmother packed her house with stuff. Knicknacks filled every space, stuff set on top of stuff. My grandpa…had his handful of things and that was it. He collected belt buckles and he kept them in a case…one case…that held all of them. He wore the same pair of boots for twenty years…or so it seemed…until they fell apart and he got a new pair not because he wanted them but because it was that or go barefoot. He had his very select handful of things and that was it. I think he would have lived in one pair of clothes too if my grandmother would have let him.

My grandpa didn’t collect things inside…but he had his tools and what have you’s outside. Vehicles, lawn mowers…junk. It appeared in the yard seemingly of it’s own accord and took up residence. And my grandmother overlooked it while my grandpa overlooked the clutter of junk in the house.

I’ll be the first person to admit I have too much stuff. I need to get rid of a lot of it. And I will. Right now my main reason for still having so much of it is simply because I’m not with it. I can’t get rid of it when I can’t even put my hands on it. But I know…more now than ever before…that the days of all that stuff in my possession are limited.

Because now when I look at stuff I don’t feel the need to keep it. It’s just there. It’s just stuff. It sits there taking up space.

If it doesn’t bring us closer to Christ or closer to those we love then what purpose does it serve?

It took the loss of my baby to show me that. Took the loss of my baby for me to see that all this materialistic stuff serves no purpose unless it brings us closer to those we love.