Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Seemingly Insignificant Vessels

It's funny how sight, sound, smell and taste can trigger a memory long forgotten. Several months ago, I helped move my aunt into a different assisted living apartment. The day was spent toting everything from one room to a room down the hall. As we were packing things up, occasionally I would run across something that would unearth a memory not just forgotten, but buried deep inside. My cousin and I were packing up her kitchen when I came across a pan that stopped me in my tracks. I looked over at my cousin who glanced at the pan and instantly exclaimed.... "Oh! It's the chocolate gravy pan." Awe, the many memories I have of waking up to my auntie making chocolate gravy and biscuits for breakfast. Sweet, sweet memory.... literally and figuratively. My cousin reached over and grabbed a well worn pie plate.... "The chocolate pie pan!" Not surprising, many of the memories had to do with food. We were a food eating clan if ever there was one. All day long, I stumbled across item after item that didn't necessarily trigger a memory, but triggered the place I remembered it belonging too. I was so young when my grandma passed, but I would run across things I knew belonged to her. I stop by my dad's house on my way to work every morning to have a cup of coffee with him. He has been going through closets in an effort to organize his life and get rid of stuff long forgotten. This morning I walked into the dining room and saw a crock sitting out for me on the table. Instantly I recognized it as having belonged to my grandma. Dad had set it out for me because he knows I have a sentimental streak for all things old and nostalgic. I brought it home and placed it on my antique wash stand feeling like it connected me to the past in a indescribable way. It's not the costly and the treasured that uncover memories of my childhood, it's the seemingly insignificant vessels or tools that bring a flood of belonging and a sharp pain of things I miss. The thought brought me to wonder how God feels about "seemingly insignificant vessels". You know the ones you run across in church and  day to day life. They boast of no great talent, no special anointing and often feel they hold no worth. Maybe the spiritually profound see them as insignificant, as they hold no title, make no claim... But God doesn't look at us as those claiming to be spiritually profound.  He looks at us with tenderness and the knowledge that no one in His kingdom, is ever "seemingly insignificant" and each and every one of us unearths the memory of the very reason Christ died on the cross.... He died so the "seemingly insignificant" could be assured they were profoundly loved in a significant way. Those seemingly insignificant earthen vessels hold limitless potential we should never take for granted.

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