What Do You Treasure?

What happens when we lose something so valuable, we grieve over it. Something material which can never be replaced? I pray we may say with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.”

My husband and I lived in Germany for three years while he served in the army. I bought charms—gold not silver, for each of the memorable places we visited as well as a solid gold bracelet. A double-decker bus in London, the Parthenon from Athens, a beer stein from Germany. Other charms from Denmark, Austria, Norway, and Italy. Then I attached some other special keepsakes such as my sorority pin from college and a medallion my stepfather gave me when he retired.

I treasured my bracelet, not for the monetary value it held, but for the sentimental worth. Each charm had special meaning. We returned to the States and I began my teaching job. One day when I came home from work, I made a shocking, no, devastating discovery. Our home had been robbed. Probably some druggie trying to feed his habit. Yes, you guessed it, my solid gold charm bracelet was gone forever. Along with a lot of other valuables as well.

To top it all off, my husband was back in Europe on another tour of duty and couldn’t even be there to comfort me. I grieved for my bracelet when it dawned on me how much I’d lost. Every little shop I’d frequented to find that perfect, unique charm. I’d been violated. Someone had broken into my home and taken something I valued—that belonged to me. Finally, I had to try to resolve it all in my heart. As usual, God provided His word.

A Christian janitor who cleaned the school where I taught came to me one day with a piece of paper in his hand. In his masculine scrawl he’d written: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where moth and rust 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.

His note was the reminder I needed to move on. Though that happened about thirty years ago, I’ll always remember how the light of God’s word shone and lifted me out of my situation. Nothing on this earth is more valuable than the Lord and His word. And no one can take that away from us.