A Tragic Loss Of Life?

Yesterday dawned bright and beautiful, top-down, windows open, shirt sleeve weather with the temperature here in Jacksonville pushing 70. So Ginny and I ventured out on a day trip driving all over the rural towns of northeast Florida and southeast Georgia, stopping here and there as the spirit moved us, and eating way more than the Spirit might think prudent.

Our aimless quest led us to browse in five or six roadside antique shops, consignment boutiques, and book stores.

At each store Ginny asked about a pattern of dishes she treasures.

At each store I asked about tobacco pipes and old diaries.

She bought a couple of three dollar dresses which she said would cost over $80 each in a mall. And she bought a birdhouse that struck her fancy.

She said that these antique stores offer more and more things that we already own or once owned but gave away. We are turning into antiques ourselves.

At one store a sign above the cash register announced:

We Buy Junk.

We Sell Antiques.

While we browsed, a distraught lady rushed in asking about her glasses. She been in that shop earlier and lay her glasses down somewhere to squint at a price tag, then left. “I can’t see to drive without them,” she said.

I winked at the guy at the counter and told the lady, “You just missed them. We sold that pair of glasses about ten minutes ago”.

The guy cracked up laughing.

That’s me, a Christian spreading light and joy wherever I go.

Not to worry, we found her glasses and she left rejoicing.

At another antique warehouse, I asked the mature couple minding the store about pipes.

No joy.

I asked about old diaries.

The man at the cash register said, “We’ve got one. Just came in. Mind you, it is a bit risqué. Mother, where did we put that girl’s diary”?

“That thing was filthy,” the lady said. “Dirty language about sex. It was trash and I put it in the trash. Won’t sell such a thing in my store”.

“She was just a young woman telling about her life experiences,” he said.

“Well, she shouldn’t oughta been having experiences like that! And she certainly shouldn’t have been writing about it. Garbage is garbage and that’s where it belongs”.

As the conversation developed, I gathered that the girl had been a flapper during the 1920s, or maybe a hippy chick from the 1960s.

In a way, her diary doesn’t matter because it is lost for ever, discarded among headless dolls, mildewed teddy bears, castoff chicken bones, soggy cardboard boxes, cracked DVD discs, hamburger wrappers…

How do I know?

Because as we left the store, I checked in the back ally dumpster hoping to salvage the lost diary.

No joy.

I know how much effort it takes to write a diary; I’ve kept mine for over 30 years. On one level I’m heartsick that the record of this unknown girl’s life was trashed as of no value.

On another level, I know that the record of this girl’s life—of all lives—is inscribed in the mind of God and that one day all the books will be opened, all secrets revealed. The Lord knows the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Did Jesus come to save only the prim and proper?

Or, is the love of God commended toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us?

Our omniscient and merciful God looks upon what we do—and why we did it.

Think of a nurse monitoring me in an intensive care unit. Can’t burp without her knowing. She sees me sleep. She sees me suffer. She knows what is crucial to my well-being and what I must simply endure. She watches overall and occasionally intervenes in my distress.

She watches me die.

I think that nurse demonstrates how God always watches us.

Not standing by like Big Brother with a cattle prod looking to zap the sinner with glee.

In Him we live and move and have our very being. We exist in His intensive care unit. The hairs on our heads are monitored. Nothing is lost to Him with whom we have to do.

Yet, St. Paul mentions that there are some things that “perish with the using”.

Maybe this girl’s diary was one of those things.

Maybe my own precious writings are another.

Things do serve their purpose and are then rightly cast aside.

That antique stores are full of them.

So the girl’s diary was judged trash and consigned to the dumpster.

I harbor a prayer that when the Lamb’s Book Of Life is opened, she herself will see her name recorded in Glory.

Be kinda nice to see me listed there too—maybe in the appendix?

You should read some of my early journals… but then again, maybe not.