Everything Left Behind

“Here are his belongings,”the gentleman said and handed me a bag. I walked into the hospital with a husband that day and walked out a widow with just a bag of his belongings. I opened the bag to see his phone, the watch he wore every day, his wallet, law enforcement badge, and his wedding ring. Looking down at that bag I couldn’t believe he was gone, everything in my hand were the things he didn’t leave the house without, yet here I was with his possessions in my hand and the permanency of death lingering over me. The reality hit full force again when I saw the text I had sent him that morning from “wifey” (with a heart emogy) unread on his phone and realized there was no where I could go to find him and no where I could reach him by phone.  The very man who always held me when I was crying was no where to help shoulder the pain, all that was left physcially was a little tiny bag of his earthly belongings..

Going back to our home I could see his things everywhere, signs of a life that was no longer living. The tears flowed as I saw everything from that September morning…. his deodorant on the counter, his toothbrush, his pillow that smelled like him. Everything that encompassed his earthly life was here. The love note I wrote him was on the desk, and from there you could look into our closet with his favorite clothes hanging and his large shoes (he was every bit of tall and handsome at 6’5). When he was ushered into eternity he took no thing with him, the only thing he took was his soul and the byproducts of his faithfulness to the Lord.

One day more people will join Patrick in heaven as a result of his intentionality on earth, the many people he impacted with his purposeful life, not his possessions. This was just such an amazing example and picture of what scripture teaches so plainly.

“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 treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-20

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

2 Corinthians 4:18

The things that will outlast my husband are what He did for Christ, not his watch, his shoes or his iphone….what was unseen, eternal and lasting. Over time and decades his personal items will decay but the Word of God that he preached and lived will outlive any earthly thing.

May this hard reality spur us all on in our pursuit of Jesus and our desire to live on this earth with eternal riches.

So how are you spending your time, treasures, and talents? Are you investing in things that last or temporal things? Are you taking the time to seek the things above and not the things of this world? Are you living in light of eternity for what truly lasts? I pray that when the Lord comes to get me or when I die that I am not found guilty of laying up my treasures here on earth but that I was a diligent servant of Christ Jesus working to store up treasures in heaven.