Friday, February 4, 2011

A Little Tin Box

I was going through boxes and I came across some things that belonged to my grandfather. There were newspaper articles about him, poems he had written, geneology, and sermon notes. My grandfather was a Methodist minister in the early 1900 s. There was a lot of information about him and by him. But not that much when you consider that he lived to be almost 90. Now - at this time in 2011, my grandfather's life has been reduced to a metal tin and its contents, and a box containing the high points of his entire life. But the choices he made during his life time, and the actions that he took, are still effecting the world, mostly in ways we are not aware of.
I began to ponder what this meant to me. I remember in Scripture we are compared to grass that is here for a day, then withers. I suddenly feel the fact that I am not the center of the world, but I belong to the One Who is. I wonder......if my grandchildren should find a box that contained tidbits of my life, what would they learn?
Would they find evidence of a character weathered by things once life changing (like Parkinson's Disease) but now insignificant? Would that box point the curious onlooker to the God who shaped me, molded me, made me fruitful, then carried me tenderly through old age to the end?
Or would that box be filled with junk? Would it be proof of a life spent on selfish pursuits and fruitless deeds? Would the focus of that box be disease and death ending it all, or would it be the beauty that had been brought forth from the ashes of yesterday.
Today's sorrow will bring about tomorrow's legacy. I pray that legacy is an honorable one pointing to the One Who matters.

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