Mugs, Penguins, and Other Inherited Treasures

When I first began the process of cleaning out my childhood home, I had grand plans to organize, plans to put each item in the house into a box or bin to be passed down to others in the family.  With the loss of my dad, and the nearness of heaven for my mom, the “stuff” in that house felt so significant- even the spoons and forks brought out raw emotions I didn’t know were there.   I actually shed tears over my parent’s silverware.

That was at the beginning of the clean-out process.  At the beginning of the process, I blew off the dust and tried to read each page of dad’s journals from his mission trips around the world.  There was such a sense of finality with every item.  This was it.  Mom wasn’t going to be purchasing new dish ware, new journals weren’t going to be written, and the spoons and forks weren’t going to be replaced by ones that were untarnished.  So at the beginning of the clean-out process, I turned on music, opened up the bins, and smiled sentimentally while I carefully wrapped each item in the house and placed them in boxes to be passed down to the next generation.

By the end of the process, I was throwing items in a box labeled “whoever wants this.”  By the end of the process, some of the spoons and forks ended up there.  By the end of the several week process, I was no longer smiling with sweet sentimental thoughts.  No.  I was cursing the many spoons and forks that existed in my parent’s house.  Memory-inducing music was no longer being played because I resorted to talking to myself about all the JUNK in the house; I even began talking out loud to my dad asking him why he couldn’t write legibly in his journals – Because I can’t read them, dad!   And I counted thirty mugs with frosty the snowman on them (maybe eighty….I’ve blocked out much of the end of this process).  While wrapping the first ten frosty mugs at the beginning of the process, I was thinking about the various nieces who might enjoy them one day.  At the beginning, I smiled at the frosty mugs thinking about the winter seasons when they sat on our kitchen table filled with warm cocoa.

Once I got to mug number thirty (or maybe four-hundred), I was thinking through the easiest way to crush frosty.  I hated frosty.  I hated hot cocoa.  Did we even have hot cocoa in those mugs?  We probably had cough syrup in them.  So I pitched the rest of the frostys.  And this, folks, is what the end of the clean-out process looked like.

But alas, I kept several items and even passed on a few frostys  to my sister.  And some of the items I kept are particularly meaningful to me.  I have my mom’s rings because I remember playing with them as a child.  I’d sit with her during Sunday night church, grab her hand, and I’d twist the rings watching them glimmer.  I have a blanket that mom kept with her during her last days.  It’s a blanket that has pictures of extended family, and if you saw mom in the last several months of her life, she was likely wrapped up in this blanket she loved.  And I kept a few of my dad’s journals.  Even though I can’t read them.  I also kept a couple of his odd looking, home-made seashell creatures, just in case I ever to start to think I come from perfectly “normal” genes.

But I don’t have any of the frosty-mugs.  Not even one.

My heart is so full of gratitude for what my parents have passed down to us, but my gratitude really has nothing to do with these little treasures, because even if I lost them all, they’ve given me gifts far greater than rings, blankets, and odd looking sea creatures.  These are three of the precious gifts I’ve received:

A Love Song for the Savior  

Their love for Jesus wasn’t always neat and tidy.  It wasn’t a love that soothed every pain, it didn’t automatically fix every problem; in fact, their love for Jesus included some wrestling with him.  I remember my dad sharing some of his doubts and struggles, especially as a young college student.  And I know that my mom’s love for Jesus didn’t remove her questioning as to why she had the disease she was given.  I heard her screams from pain, frustration, and fear.

But they loved Jesus fiercely, and they always came back to Him.  My mom wanted prayers and Scriptures sung and read in her last days.  My dad planned his own funeral, even grasping my husband at one point while giving him instructions for the service and said, “Chris, make it JOYFUL.”  

He loved Jesus with his heart, soul, and mind and wanted the joy that he found in that relationship to be declared to as many people as possible.  Sometimes the joy was sung in quiet minor tunes, and other times it was moved into a major key and sung boldly and triumphantly.  But it was always sung.  And I  heard it.  It was a song that left room for wrestling with Jesus, instead of wrestling against Him or becoming apathetic toward Him.   It was song filled with fierce and relentless love for our Savior.

Lord, help me to sing of my love for you all of my days.  

A Thirst for the Word 

I inherited a Bible from each parent.

Both mom and dad’s Bibles are filled with notes, highlights, and even torn pages from so much handling.

So much handling.  

In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses reminds his people that the Words of God are not empty, but are “your very life.”   I watched my parents handle their Bibles as though the words were their life.  It wasn’t merely grabbed off the shelf on a Sunday morning, but they studied it, they dug into it with believers and unbelievers, and they spent time trying to grasp the truths found in it.

Growing up, I listened to my parents disagree about the meaning of a particular passage (and no, my mom would not relent just because my dad had a Master of Divinity), the Bible was opened around our dinner table when I was young, I’d see them paging through it while preparing for Bible studies, and it was flipped open when we needed particular verses to help us through questions as teenagers.

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters,” Isaiah declares about the life-giving Word.  There was no question growing up how important this book was to my parents.  They drank deeply from it and used it to fuel their day-to-day.  Their handling of it wasn’t a formula to keep struggles away, it wasn’t a requirement for their salvation, but it was response of their love for Jesus.  Their fierce love kept bringing them back to drink more.

Lord, help me to come thirsty and drink abundantly from the waters of your Word all of my days.  

An Eagerness for Worship

My parents loved to worship Jesus.  I have memories of sitting on the beach while on vacation, and they’d talk for hours about songs to incorporate in worship services, themes to carry throughout the year, books of the Bible to preach through, and ways to be creative, incorporating different senses in worship.

Hear His glory, see the cross, feel the joy given, and taste the bread and the wine.  

Worship was not work.  It was a joy, and their eagerness for it was contagious.   They were as eager to worship on the beach, delighting even in the waves God created, as they were to worship in His sanctuary, taking pleasure in every aspect of a service.

I’ll never forget standing in the sanctuary with my dad and the worship director after a Good Friday service. With the sanctuary emptied, dad pointed out the details of how even the lighting on the cross aided in our worship and how the words of the music wove together the themes throughout the evening.  The worship of His Savior genuinely affected him, and I couldn’t help but be excited with him.

Lord, help me to worship you well and with a joyful heart all of my days.

As valuable as these gifts are, I’m completely mindful that if they don’t dwell deeply within my own heart, I can’t pass them down to the next generation.  You may be the first generation to have the opportunity to pass on an inheritance with eternal value, or you may be the hundredth generation.  In either case, His grace is sufficient.  Grace that gives us the desire to know our Savior deeply and broadly, grace that gives us the voice to sing of that love.  Grace that gives us the desire to know His Words whether we feel like reading them or not, and grace that allows us to drink deep enough for the Scripture to become a part of who we are.  Grace given so we can joyfully and confidently worship  Jesus, and grace that keeps our praise from becoming rote or self-centered.

We cannot do it without Jesus and His loving, merciful grace.  

I noticed that my eight-year old was sleeping with an old penguin stuffed animal of mine.  I had given it to her a few years ago and was surprised that she brought it with her to our temporary home.  She was only allowed to choose twenty of her three-hundred stuffed animals.  The penguin made the cut.  I imagined that she cuddled it every night, thinking sweet thoughts about her mom.   So I asked her if she wanted to keep my penguin forever.  “Mom, it’s flat, it’s pretty ugly, and it’s really kind of creepy.   If you want it back, you can have it.”  

Yep.  She’s definitely going to be throwing away my mugs one day.

Love Jesus, Lily.  Love Him with all of your heart.   

My flat, creepy penguin won’t last another generation, neither will my mugs, but by God’s rich mercy and grace…I know what will.