While looking through a post made by our local auction house, I was reminded of a story that was told to me by an antique store owner. We were visiting about a few items she had in her store and she said she purchased those items from a lady prior to the estate sale she was going to have on behalf of her mother. She goes on to share that this lady called her up and asked if she would like to come walk through her mother’s house and see if there was anything she wanted to buy before the Estate people came to take inventory. So, she went. She said as she walked through this women’s home, now deceased, she felt a hollowness. As she touched the tops of dressers, picked up the old hair brush and mirror set, as she noticed how the women’s robe was where it must have been every morning after she dressed, she said a lump grew in her throat and as the tears began to run down her face, she realized one day, someone will be rummaging through her stuff, touching her brush set, picking her life bit by bit and putting a price to it. She said she been doing this type buying for years for her store and it never hit her so deeply as it did this time. Perhaps because she herself was reaching that age. This women’s life was reduced to an estate sale.
While we all will leave behind “stuff” for our family to deal with, it is the things unseen that is more important to deal with before we leave this earth. Letting go of “things” can be freeing! Lighten the load now, enjoy the simplicity of less, and while you decrease the pile of saved “things” in the closet, think about what you have saved in your heart. Think of things you hold onto that weigh you down now. What prevents you from living fully now? Painful memories and gut-wrenching disappointments and fears. Dealing with these now and LIVING a good life, leaves memories for your family to cherish. If we filter our living through our fears and disappointments, this will touch our family. One day our life will be reduced to an estate sale but our memories we leave will live on through our family. Make those the true treasure.
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21