Just Junk?

Do we all have a pile like this, or is it just me? I should be honest, don't let my little collection here fool you. These are just a few of the items I pulled out of the jar (it's more like a bowl, with a lid, it's pretty). The truth is I have a whole lot crap in little collection spots all over the house. I really don't think I'm a pack rat, though I do tend to keep rather then throw away (I'm getting better at it though), but when I realized that I have more than one spot for little random things like this I began to wonder why. So I looked at the items and found they all have one thing in common: hope.

I just can't bare to throw things away when I believe that they can still serve a purpose, or can be put back together. Am I weird and twisted? (maybe don't answer that yet). When you look at these things in the picture, what do you see? My husband would say that he sees garbage and would tell me to put it there! But I see an iPod that is filled with life-giving and inspiring messages, songs of love and freedom, joy and celebration. It's company for someone, or a distraction when needed. Ok, so it doesn't turn on, but someone can fix it and then it can still serve it's purpose, be useful, and maybe even a blessing.

Do you see where I might be going with this? I paid for these things, and if I still see purpose in them then they aren't garbage. They are things that are redeemable.

I think at times we all feel like a piece of junk; like we're screw-ups. Sometimes other people treat us like junk, tossing us away or treating us like we mean nothing to them and oh how that hurts. Some of us never recover from it.

But here's the Truth that I know: I am redeemable. Despite all my junk (no not in the trunk, I'd like some junk in the trunk though), and all my brokeness I have been redeemed. And what's more, I am loved and valued and created by the God of the Universe. That's changed me.

I can't even begin to imaging living a life that I didn't feel had some sort of purpose. "Well," you might say "you're a mother. Of course your purpose is to love and raise your children to be contributors to society", and I will agree with you. But why? So that they can grow up, go to school to get a good job to make money so they can spend it and eventually just die? Or leave a "legacy" to a world that will inevitably come to an end as a result of the beating it's taken from all of humanity? Really? Why would I even have kids if I didn't think there was some sort of eternal purpose? See, I HAVE to believe that there is more than this. I don't have a choice or I think I would just kill myself. No, really, why would I want to live in this world without a hope for heaven? It would all just be in vain. All for nothing. Hopeless.

See, one day no matter what, my heart will stop beating. That will be the end of my life, but it will not be the end of me. I'm pretty sure you don't want that to be the end of you either. Does anyone?

So you see, this little collection reminds me that God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings! And he hasn't given up on me, he has saved me through death on a cross, and everyday he is refining me and shaping me. I am a new creation in Him. The old has gone; the new has come.

Likewise, the people that I love are redeemable. The people that I don't really like are redeemable! The people that I walk by in the street that have been labeled junk are just as redeemable and worthy of redemption. You are redeemable. Maybe you already know that, maybe you don't.

We are not junk to him. We are precious, purposeful sons and daughters. Do you hope I'm right?