My friend and I stumbled upon an estate sale Saturday
after our excursion to an Art Fair.
The home was old and lovely
and surely reflected a life of prosperity.
As I wandered through the world
a man and his wife had lived in,
loved in, entertained in,
I began to feel like an intruder, a spy, a witness to lives
that should have remained private.
And, suddenly, I felt a great and overwhelming sadness.
All the things they had bought together,
all the things they had accumulated,
had been given, and had shared together
for fifty, maybe sixty years or so
were left behind,
for strangers to look at and poke through.
It unsettled me.
And then, as I stood there, those words found in First Timothy 6:7
welled up in my heart and shone with great clarity:
"For we brought nothing into this world,
and it is certain
we can carry nothing out."
The lesson for me remains to be seen,
but I suspect it should serve to temper
my own accumulation
of things.
lmw
(Photo taken at the Hilltop last November)
