Growing up, my mom kept little files of school work. Each file contained a year of our lives that had come and went.
I never knew why she wanted these pieces of paper that were just part of a vast pile of assignments and art work that seemed to be a mere part of my skill building journey.
The older I got and the fewer the amount of art work/projects, the higher the value of these small pieces of paper became.
To her, my hand written notes and sloppily traced hand turkeys were a key into the memory of her priceless treasure.
Now, as a grown woman with children of my own, I too have become a collector of papers.
Seeing the little thoughts of a growing mind or the handprints of the very fingers knit together in my womb stir my heart. It fills me with a joy like I have never experienced.
One of my most prized treasures was a small clay ornament of my first child’s infant footprint.
To most, it just seemed like a poorly painted piece of pottery but, to me, it was a piece of my baby that I would always be able to hold in my hand.
When it came time to move into our first home, I found this little piece of treasure crumbled to pieces beyond repair.
My gift of a moment frozen in time was no longer…
As I tried to think of a way to repair it, my heart was dismayed.
I knew this little footprint was a fleeting memory that I would never recover.
As I stared at the broken pieces it reminded me of how precious each moment is presently.
Each moment and encounter we experience in life is a fleeting memory.
We only have this time and this day once.
This realization is a great reminder that:
We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.[b] This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. 2 Corinthians 4:7
In all reality we are like pieces of paper.
We tear, crumble easily. We are fragile and we can break.
In all actuality, compared to all the living creatures of the earth we have very little to offer, yet God created us to rule it all. Genesis 1:27-28
God created us and placed his value in us. He gifted us our identity as his children and a sacred space in his dwelling place.
He sent the Holy Spirit, His Holy Spirit, to live within our fragile beings to do his work because he values us. Even though he is aware of our fragile state.
When we have an identity in Christ, we have a light and a purpose, a power to fill the earth with his truth.
He gives us the ability to cast out darkness in the souls of other fragile beings, so they will not perish like our memories on paper but, so they may live forever.
Recently, I had the privildge of being inspired by this truth in our identity by a light in my own life.
A young girl I know wrote such a compelling story and a great example of light in her own school, read more here.
We are fragile and limited here on earth and still God chose us as his priceless treasure.
He chose us to carry his message and yearns for us to all be an eternal treasure to dwell in heavenly places with him.
I pray today that you would be a light, not keeping this treasure locked away but boldly shining bright in a dark world.
Jesus, thank you for choosing us and delivering us from the darkness of this world. Thank you for the gift of your Spirit that gives us an unattainable power by our mere human means. Thank you for being bigger and greater than this world could contain. I pray today that you would allow us to shine, allow us to illuminate darkened souls around us. Let us be intentional in every moment. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Reason 2911 