It was poignant. Going through Mama’s things. Some of it we recognized, and memories flooded us. The large baking sheet my daddy always used at Thanksgiving, when he made his homemade yeast rolls. The cast iron Aunt Jemima bank that was always in the kitchen. Mama’s needlepoint hanging on the wall.

Other things were a mystery. Maybe gifts from friends? Or from an old aunt who had downsized? The most heart wrenching of all, though, was the pile of trash. Years of accumulated “stuff.” To be thrown out. Into the garbage. Gone. Like Mama. There has to be more! My heart ached. I knew my Mama was more than piles of trash. I knew she was more than stuff. She was a living human being who had touched peoples lives. And yet, these garbage bags, and a few mementos were all that remained. I could touch these things, but they weren’t Mama. They weren’t her hands I could hold, or her voice I could hear each week saying “Hey darlin’!” They weren’t her advice or wisdom I would always ask for.

“Mama, I’m planting petunias, will they come back next year?”

“Well, darlin’, they may. Are you planting or setting out?”

“Um, I don’t know – what’s the difference?”

Turns out, planting is starting a plant from seed. Setting out is planting a seedling, or young plant. Oh, and did you know that hot water sets the stain? And if you gargle with warm salt water, your sore throat goes away. And Vicks Vapor Rub is the go-to home remedy for a chest cold.

Wonderful memories. Memories that will fade away in time. Temporary. King David recognized this. In 1 Chronicles 29:15 he said “We are sojourners before you, and tenants, as all our fathers were; our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace.” (NASB, NLT).

A sojourner, a tenant…leaving no trace behind. And that’s it? At the end of our lives, there will be no trace, nothing left? In the words of the apostle Paul “May it never be!”

Packing up Mama’s house made me realize that I don’t want my life to vanish. I don’t want to leave behind just a pile of stuff. I want to make a difference.

Max Lucado said it best in God’s Story, Your Story: “You are so much more than a few days between the womb and the tomb.”

In order for our days here on earth to count, we must make the most of every opportunity (Ephesians 5:16). Don’t sleepwalk through this life! Live aware, with eyes wide open for opportunities to be the hands and feet of Jesus:

• Mow the grass for the neighbor whose yard is overgrown. Give a helping hand. See the opportunity, not the aggravation.
• Respond in kindness, not in kind, to the cranky store clerk.

In addition to having our eyes wide open, we should hold our hands wide open…not clinging too tightly to the things of this world.

Jesus said “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19-20)

Warren Wiersbe sums the scripture up this way: “It is not wrong to possess things, but it is wrong for things to possess us…What does it mean to lay up treasures in heaven? It means to use all that we have for the glory of God.”

Using all that we have for the glory of God! What an opportunity to leave a legacy of spiritual riches, not worldly possessions.

What legacy have you received? What legacy will you leave? Will it be temporary? Or will it endure forever? Until next week…

Photos by John Chauvin

Copyright 2014 Ellen Chauvin, Ordinary…with a Splash of Flash

Slow tears trickled down my face. I watched the pallbearers carry Mama ever so gently up the steps into the white clapboard church she called home.

The hot July day would have been unbearable, if I had noticed it. I did not. I was in a fog, depending on the grace of God to get me through the next few hours.

I could hardly put one foot in front of the other….felt like I was walking through a river of mud. Struggling. But there were things to do. People and family to greet. Slowly they arrived, their murmured condolences not even beginning to comfort my grieving heart.

Her service was beautiful! Exactly what she would have wanted. Mama’s pastor told us of her love for Jesus, and laid out the plan of salvation. Her church family fed us after the funeral, hugged us and loved on us. They told us how much she would be missed. Oh, how well I knew!

One bittersweet scene replays in my mind. On a white board in the church choir room, these words:

Ann Eason
July 28, 2011
Oh happy day!

Oh…happy…day. I was trying, but my heart was broken. It’s a hard thing to lose a mama. She was the glue that held our family together. What now?

Days turned into weeks, and my life went back to normal. But was it, really?

Nothing had stopped. Life kept going. Things had to be done, at work and home. People were still coming and going. It was almost as if Mama’s death was a non-event. Didn’t people know? Couldn’t they see? Things were different. It was strange.

My heart was in Mississippi. My family was there. It felt like home. For the first time in thirty years, I felt like a stranger in Louisiana.

I didn’t belong here…or there. I was homesick. For Mama. For the family time we had shared. For home – wherever that may be. Nothing felt the same – like someone had re-arranged the furniture. Familiar, but not quite right.

Stranger. Sojourner. Exile.

Like Abraham.

Genesis 23:2-4 Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan; and Abraham went in to mourn for Sara and to weep for her. Then Abraham rose from before his dead, and spoke to the sons of Heth, saying, “I am a stranger and a sojourner among you; give me a burial site among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”

Abraham and Sarah had been living in Canaan for many years before Sarah died. Yet Abraham felt like a stranger.

The original Hebrew use of the word “stranger” indicates an alien – someone living in a strange land among strange people. These strangers did not identify with the group among whom they were living. Yep, that was me.

Why didn’t Abraham return to his homeland, if he felt like a stranger in Canaan?

We’re told in Genesis 12:1-2 ‘Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you: and I will make you a great nation…”’

God sent Abraham to Canaan. Abraham was seventy-five when he obediently left his homeland. He didn’t question God, or ask “Why?” He just went, based on God’s word and promise. The Lord put Abraham there for His purposes, and Abraham chose to stay, and grow, and make a life where God had placed him.

When the Lord moves you into a strange land, it could be your place of promise.

If this was Abraham’s land of promise, why did he feel like a stranger, after so many years there?

Abraham knew – deep in his heart – what I was beginning to fully understand after Mama’s death: This earth is not my home. I am a stranger here, a temporary resident.

Hebrews 11:10 “for he (Abraham) was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

My heart ached for this city created by God. My whole being longed for it. I’d never felt this more acutely than after Mama’s death. This longing that wouldn’t go away, that stayed months after my grief had subsided, was a longing for my real home, my heavenly home.

Abraham stayed in Canaan, even though he was a stranger, even though he grieved his wife Sarah. He was able to endure grieving in a strange land, because he kept his eyes on the city that God was building for him. Abraham’s hope was in the Lord God.

Have you ever suffered a loss and suddenly felt like a stranger – out of place and homesick? Let this promise from God’s word comfort you:

“If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:3 (NASB)

Jesus Himself is preparing a place for us! In the meantime, we must live as strangers here on earth.

2 Corinthians 5:1-2 “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven”

Until next week…