As most of you know, I narrowly slipped past the Grim Reaper on January 28, 2009 due to ecoli bacteria, which some how got into my blood stream. It sent me into septic shock, which was a sure sign that things were turning for the worse. I am told that there is a 30 percent survival rate for such conditions. Suffice to say I am thrilled to be in that 30 percent. After 5 days in the hospital I returned home as weak as a kitten with a predictably changed value system. The things that seemed of such monumental importance a week earlier were suddenly off my radar screen. Living each day and loving people were all that really mattered.
I was scheduled to retire from my job of 24 years in early March, less than two months later. Our plans were to move to Colorado so we could be close to our daughter Michelle and her family, which includes her husband Barry and four wonderful grandchildren. The plan couldn’t have come at a better time, especially considering my change of life priorities. But before we could move we had to deal with material stuff Sharleen and I had collected over the course of our 39 year marriage. That turned out to be overwhelming. Why did I buy all that stuff? Of what use was it other than temporary pleasure that now represented a virtual mountain of things I had to deal with? We gave truckloads of our possessions away and we were amazed at how much stuff we had accumulated over the years. The process was mentally and physically exhausting. All we wanted to do was to move to Colorado and live a simple, uncluttered life, but before we could begin we had to deal with the encumbrance of all our stuff.
When the moving van was loaded to the hilt, we still had to rent a trailer to haul the rest of our stuff. On the last day before we headed for Colorado from Montgomery, Al., I realized I detested those things I still had to load into the trailer. For the first time in my life I truly resented my stuff. What was it all for? Vanity and greed came to mind.
We put everything into storage in Colorado and rented a small furnished cabin for two months so we could rest and get our bearings. A near death experience and having to face all my stuff combined to fine tune my new priorities. I had come face to face with the reality of what King Solomon meant when he talked about so much of life being meaningless vanity. I felt ashamed.
This morning a man, his wife and his young daughter visited our church. The man had lost his job and his and the three of them were living in their car. They were unable to buy food. They were desperate and needed help. They had been turned away from a very large church because they were not members. That could have been me but for the grace of God. Our church was more generous and took up a collection for them and someone even offered them housing. That’s the way it should be. I couldn’t help but wonder how many needs go unmet and unnoticed because of our enslavement to our stuff, which in the end is of no eternal value – especially to a family sleeping in their car.
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